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Spyware Maker Sues Anti-Spyware Maker
prostoalex writes "An 'online media company' Zango, which gained notoriety for redirecting adult affiliate traffic and the first ever MySpace worm, is now suing the anti-spyware vendor PC Tools, maker of an application called 'Spyware Doctor', for removing Zango applications off the consumers' PCs. 'According to a posting on a blog called Spamnotes.com, Zango is seeking at least $35 million in damages, alleging that Spyware Doctor removes Zango's software without warning users that it will be deleted. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court in Seattle, according to Spamnotes.com. Formerly known as 180solutions, Zango is trying to clean up its tarnished reputation. In November it paid $3 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that its software was being installed deceptively on PCs.'"
This is the problem with well-meaning regulations.
Spyware was bad and evil because it installed itself without consent. No notice! No agreement!
So, those things were made illegal--now you have to get consent to install things.
The problem here is that consent and notice are not terribly strong protections. Hey, read that EULA! This person acknowledged and agreed to install this software. And they were notified (probably confusingly) that it was along for the ride.
Most modern adware just barely follows the rules. Technically, they comply, but they're still mostly installed by people who don't understand what they're getting and don't want it.
But since they're "legal," they can claim "we're not malware! We comply with all regulations. We provide a service people apparently want and consented to. It's removing us that's the violation." And, by the letter of the law, they're right.
Too expensive! A more fitting punishment would be to tie all trial lawyers to trees, upsidedown, and feed them ex-lax for a week. Then they would be covered in what they try to dish out to the rest of us!
Start with John Edwards since the only thing he ever did "for" North Carolina with his malpractice suits is raise the cost of insurance to the point that there are now 10% fewer Doctors here than 15 years ago. This is the kind of slime that wants to be President?
Okay, I'll bite.
We hear an awful lot about the so-called "tort crisis" and that the "courts are overrun with frivolous lawsuits." These claims are nothing more than insurance industry propaganda. It's all in the name of getting so-called tort reform passed. This, from an industry whose entire raison d'etre is not to pay.
Those of us in the business know that, in fact, the number of lawsuits, number of trials, and sizes of jury awards have actually been going down, not up. Using your medical malpractice example, the odds against a medical malpractice plaintiff winning at trial are three-to-one at best. The simple fact is, the medical profession has done a horrible job of policing itself and is mainly interested in protecting the "doctor lifestyle." No, friend, the reason there are so many fewer doctors is principally because managed care (an oxymoron if there ever was one) is driving them out of business.
Recently I has the misfortune to come accross Zango (was looking for a video codec) I'm running a Vista PC so Zango refused to install and yet windows defender still picked up the three applications it installed on my system. These three programs were left on ther system after Zango had informed me it can't install. Spybot identified two of the applications as Adware and the final as Malware.
When your programs isntallation puts three unwanted applications on a PC even when it fails to install causing a owner to install a Anti-virus package because their concerned with what else it might have put on there then your company doesn't have a reputation worth anything and if Spybot, Microsoft and every AV/Anti-Spyware company wants to black list you power to them.
Oh this was yesterday afternoon and while I don't keep A/V software running I'm very pro firewalls
...Zango is in [the] right, and Spyware Doctor should at least [give] notice [of] what it is doing to its users.Spyware Doctor does give notice of what it does: it removes software that its developers judge to be spyware. If the user opines that the tool comes up with too many false positives, then they may uninstall it at any time and use any of several other tools out there.
If you believe that there has been a false positive here, then write to the developers to suggest they change it. But don't support frivolous lawsuits.
Reference, for the bad teeth impaired
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Karma tends to go down because since I became a karma whore with a +2 moderation the slashdot mod's got bitchy (and jealous) and mod me redundant and offtopic all of a sudden. They weren't doing that for any of my posts before being said karma whore.
Anyway, well done to the spyware author... I'm sure Spyware walks a gray line, but I would draw attention to the Windows EULA (or others). For example, I only learnt the other day that when I tell windows NOT to update certain things Microsoft is informed of this just as much as when a download occurs. It is in the EULA and is thus perfectly acceptable, but I would consider it a form of spyware.
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
Sigh. These grammatical debates get quite tiresome--especially when someone wants to change what is correct to something incorrect.
"Choose" is the present-tense form, in both the indicative and the subjunctive.
"Chose" is the past-tense form of the same verb.
This is not a case of using one verb where a similar verb is correct (as in the confusion between loose and lose). This is a matter of tense. The question "Why not choose it?" is a present-time construction.
Please choose to be careful.
[just kidding]
Zango has infested millions of PCs and caused tens of millions of dollars worth of damages...
Zango is an actual company that has offices here in the USA...
Zango's offices are presumably flammable...
Why is Zango still causing problems?
[/just kidding]
Godwin's Law. This is about spyware, Hitler analogies are not appropriate.
This sig has not been evaluated by the FDA. It is not designed to diagnose, treat, prevent, or cure any disease.