Judge Stops Utah's Anti-Spyware Law
from the making-the-world-safe-for-spyware dept
A judge has granted an injunction against the new spyware law in Utah, in a case brought by adware company WhenU. The company claims that they support a federal anti-spyware law, but that the state law goes too far. While I've defended the law in the past some parts of it may be questionable -- including a ban on certain software that uses context-based tools for advertising. Obviously, this is targeted at WhenU and Claria and others who pop up contextual ads, but as we've explained before, this should be perfectly legal if (big if) the end-user decides they want it. Unfortunately, too many people are confusing two different issues here. The first issue is how this software gets installed on a computer, and the second is what it does on that computer once installed. The real problem with spyware is that it gets installed without the user realizing it. It's not the fact that it pops up ads. If someone wants software that pops up contextual ads (see: Gmail) that should be their choice. The problem is all about how the program gets installed.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Revenue Reditrection
It's not pop-ups and context-related ads that are the problem per se, but where other vendor's content is altered to redirect revenue from those who provide the value to interposing commercial malware.
Ads covering the site's banners, added links directing traffic to competitor's sites, that sort of thing. That's the same sort of problem as "piracy", file sharing impact on copyright, etc.
If software is protected against reverse-engineering and modification, and copyright protection schemes are protected against utilities to disable them, then ionline content should be protected against on-the-fly changes such as imposed by several commercial malware revenue models.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Revenue Reditrection
Besides, you claim that it's identical to the "problem" of piracy -- when studies have already shown that it's not really a problem at all.
Finally, it should be pretty clear, that I don't think there's anything wrong with reverse engineering and modification. If you buy something, you should have the right to do what you want with it.
How come you don't?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bullshit
Once again Mike, how many people do you know that purposely WANT and ACTIVELY use Gator/Claris/Satan ?
What studies Mike ? Support your position.
Gator/Claris/Satan steal from honest legitimate website.
You know it and I know it & everyone who has downloaded Spybot & AdAware know it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
49,685,176 CAN'T BE WRONG !
Ad-aware 6.0 build 181 pop
Scan your system for ad-supported software components and remove them.
OS: Windows (all)
File Size: 1.61MB
License: Free
49,685,176 CAN'T BE WRONG !
Yes, thats 49+ MILLION !
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: 49,685,176 CAN'T BE WRONG !
If these little spyware programs are so wonderful, please tell me why Gator had to change it's name to Claria ?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Bullshit
Why can't you see the difference between this particular piece of crap software and the legal principle?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Bullshit
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Bullshit
That's a very dangerous position to take.
If you don't want Gator installed on your machine (as I don't on mine either, btw) then the fact that it's surreptitiously installed is a problem.
But if you think that Gator's function is wrong then you imply a huge number of dangerous things. Basically you're saying that the person sending the data should have final authority of how the site is viewed. Personally, I use a special browser that shows essentially no ads, and no text backgrounds. I also never download flash content of any sort. That should be my right.
The whole point of how HTTP+HTML work is that the user's computer decides how it wants to interpret and present the data. What the guy sending it wants is irrelevant.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
adware and popup ads
You comment about gmail is incorrect, and bugs me a bit because people are so misinformed about gmail. Have you looked at it? If not, I have an extra invitation for the beta I can use. There are no popups. There are no ads in outgoing mail (or incoming, actually). You can delete mail forever if you wish.
The ads are only on the far right of the screen while you are reading mail, like Google. If you browser window is too small, you won't even see them. They don't flash, move, animate, popup, or attack you in any way.
I can't believe some of the crap I hear from people about how bad it is, when they obviously haven't used it.
I find it very useful, not as a regular email address, but as a target for forwarding from other accounts things I want to keep, or access from a browser anywhere. You can send encrypted attachments with information you want to protect, if needed.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: adware and popup ads
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: adware and popup ads
I saw one web site that refuses to even reply to a gmail address. why do they think any other email account is any better? Might be a good column for you.
Marty
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
-Charles W.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Bullshit
On piracy, I do see a difference between those who warez stuff for free and those who milk warez as a revenue stream - and I do have a problem with the latter. It's the same problem with revenue directors who derive revenue from the value they add ("I think I'll look at eZulu's ads and links today") but from the value they leech onto.
The latter's the principle I was stating here.
I do think that if the law is going to protect the rights of software vendors, record labels and movie studios, then that same protection should be extended to online content creators.
Whether that should be the case for *any* of the above (I think most would say yes, but would then debate about how far these rights should be protected, for how long, and against what) is another matter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]