And On The Third Try... WhenU's Pop-Ups Are Illegal

from the no-third-strike dept

Wed, Dec 24th 2003 9:51am — Mike Masnick

WhenU, the Gator-wannabe company, has been happily winning lawsuits left and right, but it seems that people just won't stop suing, and now, yet another judge has found that WhenU's adware pop-ups are illegal. In this case, as much as I think companies like WhenU and Gator are being sneaky and misleading, I think the judge was wrong. There should be nothing illegal about having such an ad pop-up if the end-user knows they installed the software that will do that sort of thing. My problem with these companies is the fact that (at least with Gator), they are incredibly sneaky in getting the application onto your computer, such that many people don't realize they've installed it. However, if people do want to install such an application that pops up ads (why? I have no clue), they should certainly be allowed to do so - as long as it's clear that the pop up is coming from WhenU.

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Sandra, 27 Mar 2004 @ 10:28am

legal question: Toolbar Blocks_replaces Search Ads
I want to notify you that there is a similar company that replaces and removes search engine ads and does it on the basis of user rights. But the twist is that it gives the user the option of turning off the option of replacing the ads with in the options menu.

The main concern is that today its replacing search engine ads, tomorrow it can replace ads of any size and other software can do the same thing based on this right. So please let me know your thoughts and if its legal or not.

I heard about this thru other forums and I have posted it as well in one forum to see and I was surprised to hear that most people think its legal. I have emailed you and a few other people and another one of my friends has as well. Because we think its a serious issue

Sandra

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Here is the post: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=16025

This software http://toolbar.550access.com blocks and replaces search ads from the search results.

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/040310/064214.html

I have been discussing this with a few of my friends on another forum, and I wanted your opinion as well. Is this a new trend that we should be concerned about? Will other software makers also include something like this? As a marketing consultant do we need to learn how to deal with this, the same way we have to deal with pop up blockers?

This software does not seem like spy ware, but I think they are pretty sneaky about how they replace the search ads. Even though they mention the ad is replaced. Is it legal to do?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Jun 2006 @ 2:13pm

right
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