[Kellie aka Ms. B]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0605070025may07,1,4196297.story?coll=chi-business-hed

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/business/article_1162080.php/Attorney_says_spyware_is_trespassing

This should be real interesting to see how this one plays out. The ex District Attorney founders of Ebates up against Chicago attorney Shawn Collins who seems to be making a practice out of suing adware companies these days.

Sidebar: Collins is also in the process of attempting to get court approval to file these cases as class actions suits.

[Zeus]

After all these years... finally

[ecomcity]

Another Adwhore gunslinger appears on the scene to take a bite out of shady AM's using Adware to pilfer sales from competitors. Great read...

"In the settlement, Direct Revenue did not admit to wrongdoing. However, it agreed not to install software on a computer without a user's consent, not to collect personal information on users and that it will help users remove the software.

"To date, it is the most comprehensive prohibitions anyone agreed to in a federal court," Collins said. If Direct Revenue violates the agreement, it can be found in contempt of court.

In an e-mail, Direct Revenue called the settlement "fair and reasonable." The agreement, the e-mail stated, embraces "the basic tenets of Direct Revenue's current consumer policies."

The company "absolutely does not promote spyware," and "we support the efforts of those who seek to eliminate spyware from the Internet," the e-mail said.

One aspect of the settlement should make Internet advertisers nervous.

"Advertisers can be sued if they know what the spyware companies are doing," Collins said. "You have to prove the advertisers have knowledge, but it's difficult for me to believe they would not know."

Collins' firm is researching companies to target.

"It's the real pressure point" of spyware cases, he said. "Spyware people live in the shadows. They don't have a reputation they care about. "So we'll go after the big companies. Advertisers can't bury their head in the sand," he said. "If legitimate advertisers refuse to play with the spyware companies, then the jig is up. We want to go after the biggest companies we can find. The point needs to be made."

Companies have several options when it comes to advertising online. They can buy ads on Web sites or use search engine queries to target customers, among other things.
But many firms also buy ad placements from companies that track a user's online activities, sending ads that pop up on a computer when certain Web sites are visited. There are legitimate companies in this area and others that implant spyware on a computer to aggressively generate pop-ups. The reason: The more ad impressions, the more money for the company that facilitated the ad."

I'd say a good start would be the 800+ stores using ebates to trash the cookies of their regular affiliates and double-dipp the stupid real merchant management paying double for sales they already had in the till... http://www.ebates.com/allStores.do

Take Lenovo 1-800-flowers Dell -Circuit City -Ashford -Buy.com -Computers-4sure and others who pay the friggin incenters double the normal legit affiliate commission rate.

[Ebudae]

[Gr_Sacc]

Wow - this one will be interesting to follow! Thanks Kellie!

[lschofield]

Is this over yet? Anyone have any info on it? I see the last post is a bit old...

[Adam Ward]

Bumping old threads is not the best idea.
Please use the search function.
ty

[lschofield]

thanks for the advice... found lots of Shawn, haven't seen the results of the case - but there's plenty to read!