Of Chattels And Trespass: ~~ A federal trial court in Chicago has ruled .....( Spyware..)

This case is promising.

Very good. Unfortunately most of this crap is coming out of China/Korea/Russia, etc... but this is a start.

More....:

Can Direct Revenue Generate Revenue Without Being Sneaky?

2005-09-29 12:00:50

The story of adware maker Direct Revenue has been both amusing and depressing at the same time. The company, who has gone through a number of name changes (each time the negative attention was too strong, basically), claimed late last year that it had learned the error of its ways and was going to become much more "transparent". Of course, even after this announcement plenty of people were still claiming they had no idea how Direct Revenue's adware got on their computers at all. In fact, when anti-spyware researchers went and checked it out, it appeared that Direct Revenue was anything but transparent. Almost everything the company claimed was at least somewhat misleading. However, with a big lawsuit facing them down, the company is claiming (once again) that it's really (no, seriously, we mean it!) going to clean up its act this time. How, exactly? Well, by getting rid of their affiliates. It seems like the new strategy of these adware firms isn't to take responsibility for their sneaky software, but to blame affiliates. It's the same thing 180Solutions did in suing a bunch of affiliates. That gives these companies an "out" where they can claim all the bad stuff was really the fault of these affiliates. Most people believe that's not quite true -- and even if the adware firms weren't directly involved, they at least looked the other way as sneaky install procedures were put in place. At the same time, most of these adware apps have license agreements and start up wizard screens that mask the real purpose of the adware -- and that's usually not the affiliates creating those. Still, the bigger question looms: if Direct Revenue is really getting rid of their affiliate program and promising to be "more transparent" can they actually still make money? The early evidence isn't too encouraging. Either way, given Direct Revenue's promises in the past, it would seem that they really need to prove they've cleaned up their act instead of just telling everyone they have.

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Can Direct Revenue Generate Revenue Without Being Sneaky?
Surprises Contributed by Mike on Thursday, September 29th, 2005 @ 03:02AM

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August 31, 2005
Judge rules in class action against Direct Revenue

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-Posted by Suzi Turner @ 9:43 pm

Spyware/adware news

I've been following the lawsuit filed against Direct Revenue in April. (The PDF document of the complaint can be seen here.) Excerpt: "A class action lawsuit claims that the Defendants are involved in installing “spyware” on millions of computers without the computer owners’ consent, utilizing it to track the Internet browsing habits of the owners and then send them intrusive targeted “pop-up” ads."

In June, Direct Revenue filed a motion to dismiss blogged here. Additional court documents can be read here and here. Direct Revenue argued that the court ought to dismiss the case because Plaintiffs (i.e., the users) must have seen the End User License Agreement (EULA) and clicked through to agree to it, thus effectively telling a court of law that its software is always installed with the user’s full knowledge and consent, despite numerous statements indicating otherwise by users seeking help to remove it.

The judge, in fact, evidently did not agree. I heard from David Fish today about the decision.

The judge is permitting our lawsuit claims for trespass, negligence, consumer fraud, and computer tampering to go forward against DirectRevenue and BetterInternet. (but not DirectRevenue's holding company since it is allegedly just a holding company). The judge also is permitting our trespass claim to go forward against two advertisers— one of which is an "ad-server" and the other is one whose pop-up ads were sent via DirectRevenue.
A few interesting comments from the judge: "many companies and computer users consider pop-up advertisements and Spyware an Internet scourge" (p. 17) and that the allegations in the lawsuit "reflect the frustration of many computer users" (p. 18).
In ruling that the lawsuit could proceed, the court recognized that trespass to personal property “has reemerged as a cause of action in Internet advertising” (p. 16). The court ruled that a trespass claim “may be asserted by an individual computer user who alleges unauthorized electronic contact with his computer system that causes harm, such as Spyware” (p. 16)
In response to an argument that individual advertisements can be easily closed, so they cannot cause a legal injury, the court ruled that this “ignores the reality of computer and Internet use, and plaintiff’s allegation that part of the injury is the cumulative harm caused by the volume and frequency of the advertisements. The fact that a computer user has the ability to close each pop-up advertisement as it appears does not necessarily mitigate the damages alleged by plaintiff, which include wasted time, computer security breaches, lost productivity, and additional burdens on the computer’s memory and display capabilities.” (p. 21).

The court document can be read in full at http://www.spywarewarrior.com/SCAN2854_000.pdf

This is certainly good news for computer users. It will be most interesting to see how the lawsuit proceeds from here. Stay tuned.

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aurora removal instructions
found aurora removal instructions on spyware removal site: Read the rest)

It's about time . . . JonathonDoe -- 09/01/05
Hate to say it Roger Ramjet -- 09/01/05
Whahoo! Thank God .... jtnixon -- 09/01/05
Wow, a Judge with common sense! No_Ax_to_Grind -- 09/01/05
Direct Revenue--Hurrah karen97 -- 09/01/05
Direct Revenue sganarelle -- 09/06/05
Spyware MartyS -- 09/08/05
aurora removal instructions parpes -- 09/16/05
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