Kung Foo - Class action lawsuit against DoubleClick

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Class action lawsuit against DoubleClick

Posted by carpanza on Jul 21, 2003 at 02:21 PM

In case you don’t know who DoubleClick is, they are responsible for serving a good percentage of the Internet’s pop-up ads. Anyone that has used the Internet recently has seen these ads on many of the major sites out there. It you are not computer savvy, these can very easily trick you into installing third party software, or visiting web sites you did not intend to. Hope they stick it to them. [link]

The class action complaint alleges that DoubleClick deceptively and fraudulently commandeered millions of Internet users to the commercial websites of DoubleClick's customers through dissemination of tens-of-millions of fraudulent Internet advertising banners that impersonated computer error messages. The Complaint states that through use of such Fake User Interface ("FUI") dialogs that gave the false appearance of being computer error messages, DoubleClick tricked millions of Internet users into interrupting the work they were performing to respond to the fraudulent error message, only to unexpectedly find both computer and computer user thus hijacked to the commercial websites of DoubleClick’s customers.

I’m all for the Internet, and realize that it takes money to run, but this is a pretty slimy way to make a buck.

Comments

Reverend Jynxed spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 02:26 PM

I'm still waiting for the signup because I want my bandwidth back or the fees for such wasted bandwidth.

carpanza spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 02:31 PM

WHO IS A MEMBER OF THE PROPOSED CLASS?

The class action Complaint was brought on behalf of all persons residing in the United States who have, while operating a computer, encountered an advertising banner like the one illustrated on this website.

If you saw the ads, you're a member of the class. You don't have to have clicked on any of them.

Yay!

Hollowpoint spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 02:56 PM

I have no problem with banner ads in principle but I've seen the "FUI" ads they reference and I do believe they go too far- the less savvy could easily be tricked.

That said, don't the owners of the websites in question have control over what kinds of ads are placed? For instance, you won't see hard-core porn ads on Yahoo. If the owners / administrators of the websites in question allow such ads, I would think they're just as responsible as Doubleclick.

On a related note- I suspect most users here already have or know about this, but if you don't- I highly recommend "Ad-aware" [link]
for detection of "spyware". It identified some on my machine, but note that deleting all spyware may screw up Kazaa if you have it. See the earlier post about the alternative "Kazaa lite", which is apparently spyware-free.

BadKitty spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 05:48 PM

I can't seem to keep this GAIN bullshit off of my computer at work. Some idiot keeps installing DateManager. It is this pop-up that looks like an update. I am going to wring their necks!! Now everytime I look at ANYTHING it slams me with a list of advertisers disguised as a search page. clik, clik, clik

BiLLYFISH spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 06:25 PM

a great way to destroy those pop-ups is with meaya's pop-up blocker. if unregistered, it will block 50 ads, but i am waiting to see if you can reinstall it after the 50 and get more uses out of it. you can find it here. it's a great little program and saves your mouse's left clicker button from an untimely death.

[link]

Anonymous Coward spoke on Jul 21, 2003 at 07:58 PM

you could just use link]">mozilla. It is free and kicks the crap outta IE.

Anonymous Coward spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 03:51 AM

It also eats more memory than IE, mozilla bitch.

-Khoury

Sunfire spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 03:59 AM

If memory usage is such a big concern, there's always Firebird, which is just the browser component. The Mozilla project is actually moving to a Firebird/Thunderbird combination instead of one program with everything integrated.

Sunfire spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 04:04 AM

Ad-aware is good, but what I've found to be even better in detection capabilities and other features, is Spybot S&D [link]

I use both just in case one misses something the other would find.

gabdabary spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 10:21 AM

if you want to block pop-ups with IE you can just download the new Google toolbar. unobtrusive and it blocks almost every pop-up thrown its way.

Reverend Jynxed spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 11:24 AM

Spybot picks up what ad-aware doesn't and ad-aware picks up what spybot doesn't.

I use them both or do it all manually.

They are both handy programs.

Reverend Jynxed spoke on Jul 22, 2003 at 11:27 AM

So that's why my Gig of ram seems like I'm only running 128MB when I have that piece of shit open ;)

Anonymous Coward spoke on Oct 29, 2003 at 07:16 AM

google toolbar has pop up blockers

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