NY sues spyware producer

[microbe]

The register reports NY state is suing Intermix for distributing spyware.

New York sues Intermix over spyware
By John Leyden
Published Thursday 28th April 2005 16:54 GMT

New York Attorney General Eliot 'The Blitzer' Spitzer has launched a suit against Intermix Media, claiming the firm markets software that covertly installs "spyware" and "adware" on infected machines. The suit against Los Angeles-based Intermix is the largest to date involving programs that redirect web addresses, add toolbars and deliver pop-up ads. New York reckons Intermix is responsible for infecting million of home computers with nuisance programs and worse.

The suit follows a six-month investigation in which the Attorney General's office found that Intermix had installed a wide range of advertising software on home computers without giving consumers proper notice. Intermix owns and operates a wide range of web sites, including mycoolscreen.com, cursorzone.com and flowgo.com, which advertised "free" software available for download, including screensavers, screen cursors and games. Along with these programs comes invasive ad-ware programs which allegedly get installed without the consent of consumers visiting these sites.

Among these malign programs are KeenValue, which serves pop-up ads and IncrediFind, which redirects web addresses to Intermix's proprietary search engine. Other programs placed advertising "toolbars" on users' screens. The Attorney General documented at least ten separate web sites from which Intermix or its agents were downloading spyware, providing either no warning or other misleading disclosures. In this way, Intermix and its agents downloaded more than 3.7 million programs to New Yorkers alone, the Attorney General alleges. In addition, the programs omitted "un-install" applications, and even reinstalled themselves after being deleted.

The Attorney General's suit seeks a permanent injunction against Intermix from secretly installing spyware, an accounting of all revenues made on these products, and payment of penalties. The lawsuit was drafted under New York's which prohibits false advertising and deceptive business practices, and New York's common law prohibitions against trespass.

Negotiations with Intermix prior to the lawsuit failed to reach a settlement to New York has turned to the courts. Intermix is yet to comment on the case. Shares in Intermix fell 55 cents, or 11 per cent, in early trading American Stock Exchange following news of the suit, AP reports. ®

 

[CivCynic]

Well that's interesting...

 

[FriendlyFire]

In addition, the programs omitted "un-install" applications, and even reinstalled themselves after being deleted.

Its almost virius like

 

[microbe]

I want to share a story when I was still in China.

In about 1996, there was a major anti-virus software vendor in China released a version which did something special: if it detected that it was a pirated version, it would "lock up" user's hard drive on a particular day. The lockup was so serious that you could no longer boot your computer (not even from a floppy disk). The technique it used was to alter user's hard drive's partition table so it went into a dead loop, so whenever the MS-DOS bootup code tried to parse the partitions it would lock up hard. You couldn't even reinstall the system.

This infuriated a lot of computer users. They were told by the vendor that they'd have to send their hard disks to them if they wanted to get their hard disks unlocked. If you are really smart, you could write your own special bootup code and alter the partition tables back (without using MS-DOS), but most people couldn't do it. You'd have to wonder whether it was an anti-virus software, or the virus itself.

The amazing fact was that the government fined the vendor for a miniscule 3K Chinese dollars, and today it's still in good business. The company is called Jiang Min (named after its founder), and the software is KVxxx. This upset me so much more than the "lockup" strategy itself.

So I appreciate the act that NY state is taking. It certainly is not as dumb as the Chinese government who showed no interest in protecting its people from malicious business conducts in the 1996 case.

 

[Xen]

good, very good; perhaps soon we can move on to the sentences the spyware whores produce; I've lost one entire computer, and have had to re-boot my new one, loseing everything on it, all due to spyware- thier should be no pity given to them, they are a plague.

 

[Scrimshaw]

good, very good; perhaps soon we can move on to the sentences the spyware whores produce; I've lost one entire computer, and have had to re-boot my new one, loseing everything on it, all due to spyware- thier should be no pity given to them, they are a plague.

I couldn't agree more. I've had to format my current machine a couple of times as well and reinstall everything on it because of spyware.

I hope they throw the book at them

 

[Riesstiu IV]

Spyware producers should be exiled to Elba.

 

[Xen]

my preference is for outright execution. but whatever.

 

[Bluemofia]

my preference is for outright execution. but whatever.

No, dropped on an island near antartica and left to fend for themselves.

Seriously, the people who make spyware should be shot or something because they have caused soo much problems on my computer.

 

[microbe]

eweek is featuring a front page story there, more to read.

 

[wit>trope]

You know what's funny is that I thought of execution and exile to Antartica also, not seriously though of course.

 

[Bluemofia]

I have discussed this with many of my friends, and they say that the US should get a penal Island for keeping prisoners, such as spyware producers and supplies will be paradroped every month or so, and to check on how many of them are still alive.

 

[Shaihulud]

Spyware producers are monsters who must be eradicated, and yes my computer was recently "infected" with their vile constructs and I had to reformat my HD!

 

[blindside]

Spitzer laying the smackdown as usual.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

We need to round all the spyware producers and put them to death by hideous torture.

 

[Ramius75]

yeah, agreed, spyware are almost as bad as viruses, or in some situation even worse. they should force close all the spyware vendor and make it illegal.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Heres my punishment for spyware producers: put them in a large arena, like the Coliseum. All around there are cages with crazed, ravenous lions. The doors to the cages are controlled by switches that are scattered around all over the arena. The doors are rigged to begin opening at random intervals, the only way to make them close again is by hitting the correct switch for each door. The penitents would be forced to continue running frantically all over the arena, hitting switches to keep the doors closed. For every switch they fail to get to in time, theyve got a hungry lion to deal with.

I think thats a fitting torment for inflicting pop up ads on humanity.

 

[Sparta]

Heres my punishment for spyware producers: put them in a large arena, like the Coliseum. All around there are cages with crazed, ravenous lions. The doors to the cages are controlled by switches that are scattered around all over the arena. The doors are rigged to begin opening at random intervals, the only way to make them close again is by hitting the correct switch for each door. The penitents would be forced to continue running frantically all over the arena, hitting switches to keep the doors closed. For every switch they fail to get to in time, theyve got a hungry lion to deal with.

I think thats a fitting torment for inflicting pop up ads on humanity.

I like BE's idea a lot. We could even expand on it to make the punishment fit the crime:

Instead of switches keeping the doors closed (and the lions in), make the doors only close back down once a given website is reached on randomly distributed computer terminals. To keep things appropriate, the offender's own software would be mercilessly throwing popup ads at them simultaneously. We could even add to the cruelty by only allowing 56K connections .

The gladiators of the future - convicted spyware peddlers.

"You've got 30 seconds to run to terminal 12 and look up the weather in Berlin before a hungry lion tears you to pieces. Enjoy the 18 popup ads."

 

[Bozo Erectus]

That sounds more like a 21st century arena I guess Im old fashioned

 

[Stylesjl]

Evil spyware needs to burn in some place with lots of fire ie. Hell. I had spyware on my computer that made annoying popups for over two weeks despite the blocker and because the Adawre was outdated it took a while to remove it.