Class-Action Suit Dismissed Against Spyware Provider
543129
By Eric Benderoff, Chicago Tribune  Sep. 7--A federal lawsuit that pitted a Naperville attorney who wanted to bring class-action status against a company he says puts spyware on personal computers was dismissed Wednesday before reaching trial.
387977
A U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati on Friday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush's domestic spying program adopted after the September 11 attacks.
575510
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday filed the first case in the country against software companies accused of infecting computers with intrusive "spyware" and then trying to sell people the solution.
77924
Movieland.com is the second company to be sued under Washington's spyware law.
253917
A class-action lawsuit that alleged Microsoft Corp. overcharged consumers was settled Wednesday for an undisclosed amount.
141168
A federal court judge on Thursday  dismissed a lawsuit against Google Inc. by disgruntled  advertising customer Kinderstart that had accused the Web  search leader of monopolistic business practices.
474601
Claiming national security concerns, and backed by Justice Department special counsel, the phone provider argues in federal court that a lawsuit against it for ponying up millions of phone records for a secret government data-mining program should be dismissed. Ryan Singel reports from the courthouse.
506605
(InfoWorld) - The operator of two computer privacy services has agreed to pay up to $1 million in refunds to customers to settle charges of using deceptive marketing techniques and selling the customer's personal information. Consumer Digital Services, which sold the Privasafe and SurfSafe software and services, has agreed to pay $300,000 in fines and legal fees and offer refunds to Washington state consumers who were billed for their products, according to Katherine Tassi, assistant attorney general for Washington. Terms of the settlement were outlined in a consent decree filed Thursday in King County Superior Court in Seattle. Consumer Digital Services is controlled by Gary Salmirs, of Fort Lee, New Jersey, who is also named in the settlement. The state alleges that the company violated state consumer protection laws, but neither Salmirs nor the company admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement, Tassi said. According to her, the company lured customers with offers of free gift cards, flat-screen monitors, andÂ software, promoted through pop-up ads and e-mail. Customers handed over personal informationÂ such asÂ addresses, telephone numbers, and dates of birth, thinking that they were getting a free product. "What they actually were doing was signing up for a paid service," Tassi said. Thousands of consumers received unexpected $14.95-per-month charges for the company's software and services, and almost nobody got a free gift card or flat-screen monitor. "Our investigation showed that only one of the over 13,000 Washington consumers ever actually got this free item," Tassi said. Consumers didn't have to hand over credit card information in order to be billed because the charges were tacked on to regular monthly telephone bills, she added. Last year, the Florida attorney general investigated a company called Email Discount Network for engaging in similar billing practices, Tassi said. Consumer Digital Services took its Web sites offline sometime during the past month, Tassi said. But according to cached copies of these sites, the company said that its products would remove spyware, protect consumers against "unscrupulous marketers," make Internet surfers anonymous, and even boost connection speeds. In fact, the "exact opposite" occurred, Tassi said. "They actually were compiling a huge database of consumer information that could be used for marketing purposes," she said. This data was eventually sold to marketing companies, she added. Washington state residents who were billed for Privasafe or SurfSafe products since Jan. 1, 2004, can get their money refunded and will be contacted by Consumer Digital Services. The company could not be reached immediately for comment.
255662
Federal authorities have asked a federal judge to shut down an operation that they said installed intrusive "spyware" on people's computers and then sold anti-spyware software to those same victims, a top consumer protection official said today. -washingtonpost.com
299952
(InfoWorld) - A California attorney claims he has unraveled part of the mystery behind a questionable software program and is prepared to go to court. Attorney Joseph M. Bochner filed a class-action civil suit last September in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County against two men the suit alleges are behind Winfixer, a purported security software. The lawsuit names Marc J. Cohen of Florida, and was amended last week to add James Reno of Ohio as an additional defendant, Bochner said. It seeks compensation and a halt to the distribution of Winfixer, among other remedies. The suit was filed on behalf of Beatrice Ochoa, a mother of two who paid US$39.95 for Winfixer after it badgered her with repeated pop-up warnings that her computer had security threats. The program eventually rendered her computer's hard drive unusable, Bochner said. The suit counts another 100 anonymous victims. "All of these people are being defrauded and they're just ordinary folks," Bochner said. "They buy a computer, they surf the Internet, they're not doing anything unreasonable and suddenly they're defrauded." Indecision over whether Winfixer is a legitimate product may be the reason it still pervades the Internet. Winfixer has been a moving target for security experts, at times going by the names ErrorSafe, WinAntiSpyware, WinAntiVirus, SystemDoctor and DriveCleaner. Security software from vendors such as Sophos PLC and Symantec Corp. will detect it, but give users the option of whether they want to remove it. Sophos calls it "adware" that hypes security threats and then implores users to buy the software. Microsoft Corp., however, pulled no punches last month whenÂ Winfixer ads began show up on its instant-messaging program, calling it "malware," a shorter term for "malicious software." Experts have also seen it install itself on computers via security vulnerabilities in browsers or OSes. However, the lawsuit could face hurdles in court. Web sites are frequently registered under false names or under stolen identifies and the real owners can be difficult to trace, said Sandi Hardmeier, a computer security authority who writes about Winfixer on her blog "Spyware Sucks." Proving the link to the alleged perpetrators, their connections to Winfixer all the way through to the effects on Ochoa's computer will be very difficult, she said. "Forensics is everything," she said. Bochner acknowledges it's hard work to track down fraudsters who use the Internet's anonymity to commit crimes, but the criminals are real people who can be located. Bochner said he has compelling documentation to link the defendants named in the suit to Winfixer. By researching IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that hosted the versions of Winfixer and their owners, Bochner alleges he has uncovered a fraud based in the U.S. that has escaped law enforcement scrutiny. Reno ran a Web hosting company called ByteHosting Internet Service LLC with a postal address in Amelia, Ohio. Bochner said at one time, a support number for Winfixer support also rang through to ByteHosting, which led in part to Reno being added to the suit. Reno, along with other co-defendants and ByteHosting, was sued by Symantec Corp. in 2004 for allegedly creating pop-up ads that told consumers their Symantec software was about to expire. The ads then directed users to fake software that looked similar to Symantec products. Court records show Reno and Symantec reached a confidential settlement in December 2004. Cohen was named for his connections with vipfares.com, a now-defunct travel Web site, Bochner said. At one time, the Winfixer software would hijack the user's browser and suddenly show vipfares.com, he said. Efforts to reach Cohen and Reno for comment were unsuccessful on Wednesday and Thursday. However, Cohen's attorney, Judy Silverstein, appeared on a San Francisco TV news program on Feb. 26 regarding Winfixer and her client. Silverstein said, "His [Cohen's] position is he's done nothing wrong. He's done nothing improper or illegal, and he's had no ownership interested in those Web sites." Bochner said he has turned over some of his research to law enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Secret Service along with California authorities. While researching IP addresses that linked to Winfixer, Bochner said he suddenly came upon a database detailing sales of Winfixer and the other versions of the programs. The multi-gigabyte database -- apparently left unsecured and open to the Internet -- contained names, addresses, credit-card numbers, transaction amounts and the version of Winfixer that was sold, he said. For example, on Jan. 20, 2006, the data showed 2,351 sales to users worldwide, with an average transaction amount of $40, Bochner said. The database covers transactions made from January 2005 through January 2006. One of the records shows a transaction made by someone who lives across the street from his law office, Bochner said. The data, while incomplete, allows a view of the fraud ring's broad reach and scope, he said. "I think this is far larger than anyone has ever expected," Bochner said. "It's not inconceivable that these people have made $150 million or more over the last few years." Â
259252
A federal judge on Friday dismissed an antitrust complaint against a key Internet oversight group brought by a company that controls directories for guiding Internet users worldwide.    U.S...
45206
The US Federal Trade Commission last week filed a legal complaint against two companies that allegedly infected computers with spyware and pop-up advertising, then tried to sell their owners spyware-blocking software.
65249
Spyware has come under target of the Federal Trade Commission with a new complaint filed in federal court which is requesting that two Internet based advertising and software firms be closed.
443677
The Federal Trade Commission has asked a US District Court to shut down a computer spyware operation. The FTC said Tuesday the operation hijacks computers, secretly changes their
195994
Scareware tactics backfire on Secure Computer A firm accused of marketing bogus anti-spyware software has paid $1m to settle a lawsuit brought by the US State of Washington.â¦
768536
(InfoWorld) - AÂ federal judge in Delaware has dismissed portions of a class-action suit that accused Intel Corp. of violating antitrust laws. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan, in a ruling issued Wednesday, said that a U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the foreign conduct claims in a lawsuit that seeks monetary damages for U.S. consumers and businesses who purchased PCs with Intel chips. Those consumers say they were forced to pay too much because Intel used its near-monopoly position to bar computer makers from using Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) chips, thus eliminating competition and keeping prices artificially high. The case has no direct relation to the antitrust suit leveled against Intel in 2005 by AMD, but mirrors the same charges, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. Farnan is hearing both cases, and in September made the same decision about the AMD version. The ruling means that even if the court found Intel guilty of forcing up prices, the plaintiffs could not calculate the damages they won by including PC sales by foreign vendors like Acer Inc., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp., Mulloy said. They would have to base their claim solely on sales by U.S. vendors like Dell Inc., Gateway Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Still, both AMD and the foreign consumers will continue pressing their cases because Farnan also ruled they could use foreign evidence to build a domestic case against Intel. "AMD and the class [action suit] would need to sue Intel in foreign jurisdictions to recover monetary damages that were incurred outside the U.S.," said AMD spokesman Michael Silverman. "From our perspective -- and I suspect the class would say the same -- the critical piece was to gain access to that foreign discovery. In both cases, the judge has allowed that access." In addition, the class-action suit concerns only the harm caused to domestic customers, said Daniel A. Small, a lawyer for the firm Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld and Toll, of Washington, D.C. who argued the plaintiffs' case. "We're pursuing very actively document discovery, both from Intel and from third parties," Small said. However, that effort hit a large hurdle on Monday, whenÂ Intel admitted it had lost many internal e-mail recordsÂ related to the AMD case, making it impossible to collect them as evidence. On Wednesday, the court gave Intel a deadline of April 10 to turn over an explanation of its e-mail preservation plan, a list of correspondence between the people responsible for following it and its plan to restore the lost data. Another challenge for the class-action suit is Intel's motion to dismiss the entire case because it says customers were never harmed by increased prices. Instead, Intel says it used its dominant market position to compete with AMD by decreasing prices, Small said. Farnan said Wednesday he would rule on that motion by the end of March. Â
592033
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday filed a legal complaint against two companies that allegedly infected computers with spyware and pop-up advertising, then tried to sell their owners spyware-blocking software.