Whether you think Eliot Spitzer is doing a great job or you think he is overdoing it by suing what seems like a record number of companies… You have to put your hands together for his latest suit where he accuses Intermix Media of redirecting users to a number of sites owned by the company. Here is an excerpt from Yahoo News which has a really new and interesting interface BTW:
"Spyware and adware are more than an annoyance," Spitzer said. "These fraudulent programs foul machines, undermine productivity and in many cases frustrate consumers’ efforts to remove them from their computers. These issues can serve to be a hindrance to the growth of e-commerce."
Christopher Lipp, senior vice president and general counsel for Intermix, denied promoting or condoning spyware, saying its toolbars and redirect applications do not collect personal information on computer users.
He added that "many of the practices being challenged were instituted under prior leadership, and Intermix has been voluntarily and proactively improving these applications and related consumer disclosure and functionality for some time."
According to Spitzer, Intermix owns and operates such Web sites as mycoolscreen.com, cursorzone.com and flowgo.com, which advertised screensavers, games and other software available for download. Though those programs are free, they often carry other software for delivering ads and can interfere with normal computer use, he said.
One of the company’s ad-delivery programs, "KeenValue," delivered pop-up ads while another program, "IncrediFind," redirected Web addresses to Intermix’s own search engine, Spitzer said.
The ad software sometimes comes without notice, or if a user was asked permission, it was often through a vague reference in a lengthy licensing agreement that could be misleading or inaccurate, investigators said.
The programs sometimes omitted "un-install" applications and couldn’t be removed by most computers’ add/remove function, Spitzer said.
Spitzer’s civil suit accuses Intermix of violating state General Business Law provisions against false advertising and deceptive business practices. He also accuses them of trespass under
Spitzer, after taking on Wall Street and the insurance industry, is taking a harder look at Internet companies he believes are stunting the growth of e-commerce.
"We are looking across the industry at these practices because it really does go to the core of e-commerce," said Kenneth Dreifach, chief of Spitzer’s Internet Bureau, "Increasingly, people don’t feel in control."
The advertisers, which include Fortune 500 companies, aren’t targeted.
Dreifach said negotiations with the company didn’t result in a settlement, and more cases are possible.
"One of Internet users’ biggest frustrations today is unwanted software that sneaks onto computers without their owner’s consent and cannot be uninstalled," Ari Schwartz, the Associate Director Center for Democracy and Technology, "The practices alleged in this case are widespread on the Internet."
CraigPoschmann
April 29, 2005 at 10:56 amI think this is the greatest thing Spitzer is doing. I hope he goes after all companies that put this crap on peoples computers. Before I got Mozilla, my computer was infested with crap from companies like Intermix.
Jim
May 7, 2005 at 11:59 pmI don’t understand why everyone does not take advantage of their local small claims court to sue spyware companies. The process is pretty simple.
All states have some law that prohibits what is known among lawyers as “tresspass to chattels”. This merely means someone without your permission uses any of you personal property for their own purposes thereby damaging it or depriving you of its use. Any spyware company writing spyware to your computer, even relatively innocuous companies like FastClick, deprive you of the use of that portion of your hard drive that they write on. The deprivation is permanent in that unless you make the effort to find and delete the spyware, it stays on you disk forever. This persistance is deliberate on the part of the spyware vendor since it want the spyware to stay forever, update itself, and be as hidden as posssible so you don’t find and delete it.
This is trespass to chattels. At minimum you can recover the cost of cleaning your hard drive — that is your time and the cost of anti-spyware/adware programs.
Further, every jurisdiction prohibits graffiti. It usually falls under a criminal statute against vandalism or criminal mischief. If a company writes its advertisement on your garden wall, the graffiti is prosecutable as a crime. If he writes it on your hard drive, then it is at least actionable as a tort.
Sue. It costs only a few dollars for you to bring a suit in small claims court. Ask for the maximim damage you can get (usually arount $2000). Most of the time the company will not even show up to defend itself against you suit.
Once you get the judgment, turn it over to a multi-state collection agency to collect. They will charge you 50% or so, but you still net $1,000. And they will collect, believe it.
If everyone did this, say 100,000 people per month, the spyware companies would be out of business in a few months.
Or, get nasty. Any company doing busines in your state needs to be certified by the Secretary of State to do so. There is an exception for some broadcast media corporations (radio and TV), and some national corporations such as national banks and federally chartered corporations (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AMTRAC). But as a rule, a company cannot write its advertising messages on property located in your state unless it is registered as a corporation empowered to do business in your state. Is the spyware company registered? If not, complain to you Secretary of State in writing. The fine for not registering are pretty stiff.
Want to get really piggy? Write the spyware company a certified letter, return receipt requested, offering to rent space on your hard drive for some reasonable amount — say $1000.00 per day. Make it clear that if the company write on you hard drive again in the future, the rental goes into effect. Then wait a few months and sue for back rent in small claims. You can get about two days worth of rent for every suit, so file a lot of them. And, no, you are under no obligation to erase the spyware so as to reduce the rent due. The spyware company must do that. You may, of course, offer you services to erase the spyware for some reasonable fee — about $5,000 ought to be reasonable.
Folks, the courts are there for a reason. One of them is to prevent and punish annoyances. If you are annoyed, as I am, find the courthouse. It pays in satisfaction and money.
When I get around to it, I will post a sample complaint that you can probably use in your state to sue the bastards.
VoIP Blog - Rich Tehrani
May 8, 2005 at 4:05 pmEliminate Spyware
This may be the best response to one of my posts. The following was a response to my Spitzer Spyware Suit I am not a lawyer but these ideas to eliminate spyware seem like they have merit and if there…
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