Bonzi Class Action Suit Settled: No Foolin'!

An anonymous reader writes "According to this article in the Toronto Star, a class action suit against Bonzi Software has reached a settlement. Bonzi will not pay damages but will be required to stop using fake user interface (FUI) style error messages to trick users into clicking on their banners. This is a big win for the community as it will help to improve the Internet's ailing perceived user experience. Most of you have seen Bonzi's banners, and probably most of you won't admit to having been fooled by them at some point. Well, imagine how many novice computer users were tricked into installing again, or paying for software they really did not need. Congratulations and thanks to Lukins & Annis for a job well done. Interestingly, bonzi.com has been returning connection refused all day. This is usually one of the net's busiest sites."

Overstated Impact

[dtolton]

"The San Luis Obispo, Calif., software company has reached a
settlement in a landmark U.S. case that could have far-reaching
impact for companies that try to disguise their online banner
ads."

That seems like a pretty drastic over-statement. This is a
settlement, the judge didn't decide in their favor. I don't
think settlements have any value as far as precedent goes.
That's why so many people settle cases in the first place. To
classify this as a "landmark" case looks like someone is having
delusions of grandeur.

I am happy to see that they'll stop using those irritating
banners though. They don't usually get me anymore, but every
once in a while they'll cause a minor palpitation (unless of
course I'm on a Linux box).

Bonzi buddy!

[mao che minh]

Anyone remember when Bonzi first came out? I was a tech back then, and almost all of the systems on the campus were crashing and experiencing major slow down for a couple of days. I would run the usual gamut of questions: "Did you install anything new? Are you using AIM or ICQ? How many programs do you have open?". Asking these questions over the phone is futile, but you do it anyways, cause you're a lazy tech and you don't want to leave the air conditioned NOC. So I had to eventually turn off the game of Quake, log out of heat.net, and carry my lazy ass down to all of the offices. It was funny to be half listening to the clerk/professor/secretary/manager telling me about how they "never install anything on their computer" and how they "always run scandisk and the virus scanner on Friday at 4:30pm" and bla bla bla, just as their system grinds to a halt with a big purple ape [bonzi.com] on the screen jumping out at you, and the jarring blare of a long drawn out "uh ohh!!" that corresponds with the reception of 80 new ICQ messages.

my dad used it...

[zbowling]

Seems to be work for me. Maybe your isp blocked that domain on there dns servers. Interestingly anough I got this popup image [bonzi.com] when I visted the site.

My dad used to use bonzi before I explained what a fool he was for installing spy ware. He like the bonzi-buddy (the little Microsoft Agent Charater) because he could make it talk and it would sing to him.

Bonzi, Ponzi, Shmonzi ?

[McSnarf]

What will keep Bonzi from "selling the idea" to another seemingly independent company?
Their scheme (not to be mistaken for the way more profitable, way more illegal Ponzi scheme) most likely made them enough money to be of value to a lot of other seedy companies.

Still - a milestone !

Re:Ah...

[Empty_One]

That's funny, the site worked fine for me, and it even popped up one of those error like advertisements warning my that my pc was broadcasting my IP address.

Need to filter out this address

[mozumder]

There needs to be a way for the IP addresses of known bad guys, like Bonzi and Gator, to be filtered out at the ISP level so they do not massively disrupt computers. Perhaps a central authority used to designate spyware domain names and IP addresses...

Re:Oh bullshit

[Theaetetus]

That's also why advertisers use interfaces that are very similar. They want to encourage familiarity and comfort with their ad, to get people to click on it.

You're either trolling or smoking something, but I'll bite. These are not 'similar' interfaces to encourage familiarity and comfort. These are 'similar' interfaces to deceive "customers" into thinking that it's not an advertisement but rather is part of the system's normal warnings.
It's kin to the full-page magazine ads that look just like stories - which have been found to be deceiving, which is why they all have to have 'advertisement' printed at the top and bottom.

Also, parodic uses of common UI's do occur. These are protected under the first amendment. Just for civil liberties in general this is a bad court case. It's similar to the Nike free-speech/commercial speech court case recently in the US supreme court.

This was not a parody. This was not a satire. This was intended to deceive viewers into thinking it actually was the original art, thus violating the protections given to parody and satire.

-T

Re:Oh bullshit

[Ed Avis]

Whenever a Java applet wants to create a window it will have a prominent border saying 'Warning: applet window'. This is so that applets can't spoof dialogue boxes belonging to other applications.

Web browsers ought to do the same, although sticking a border round every image might be overkill. Perhaps some hairy heuristic could work out what looks 'rather like' a system window and disguise it appropriately. I'm talking here of images embedded in web pages (which can still look near enough like a dialogue box to fool novice users). Popup windows, of course, are the spawn of Satan and should be blocked by default anyway.

Any Bonzi-type ads for Apple?

[Arslan ibn Da'ud]

I figure the Bonzi ads worked because everyone had the same-style GUI elements universal to all Windows. (The ads didn't fool me because they didn't look like real windows on my KDE screen ;)

Seems like someone would try to create ads that follow the Aqua L&F...at least if they are selling their 'goods' to a Mac crowd.

On the other hand, Apple may not like that, and be more proactive than MS in stopping this kind of thing.

OH PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

### GIVE ME A BREAK! ### Has anyone noticed the guy (Philip J. Carstens) who is suing Bonzi Software also sued his "former employer" after he sustained an "injury" of a "traumatic nature" when he bit into a piece of "Halloween Candy" taken from a dish located on the reception desk of his employer and "broke loose a dental crown."

It's kind of like the story about the burglar who sued for being trapped for 8 days in a garage of a house that he burgled -- with "nothing" to survive on, except a case of soft drinks and a bag of dry dog food.

You should read his legal arguement: "The candy was either furnished by Mr. Carstens' employer, or by the receptionist employed by Mr. Carstens' employer, with full knowledge of the company's management and because the injury occurred in the course of his employment, Mr. Carstens had clearly sustained an injury compensable under the Industrial Insurance Act."

Compensable? What does that word mean? Do they mean like... as in... compensation? Do they mean like... M-O-N-E-Y?

But the really shocking thing is: HE WON THE CANDY LAWSUIT AND ACTUALLY GOT MONEY FOR HIS "TRAUMATIC INJURIES"! You can read all the "traumatic" details of that fateful day at: http://www.wa.gov/biia/890723.htm

However, there's one more interesting twist to this story. It turns out the "businessman" who filed the lawsuit is not really a "businessman" after all, but a lawyer who is just pretending to be someone else -- and it gets worse -- the "employer" that Mr. Carstens sued was none-other-than the law firm of "Ludkins & Annis" -- that's right, the same law firm who is now suing Bonzi Software on Mr. Carstens' behalf.

If you are scratching your head, so am I. I don't get it. What's really going on here? This lawyer claims he does not work for the law firm of Ludkins & Annis -- yet, their website in Google's "cache" says: "Philip J. Carstens has been a principal at the law firm of Ludkins & Annis since 1974."

SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT. YOU HAVE A LAWYER -- WHO SUID HIS OWN LAW FIRM FOR BEING "TRAUMATICLY INJURED" BY A PIECE OF HALOWEEN CANDY -- AND NOW THIS SAME GUY HAS BEEN "INJURED" BY INTERNET POP-UP ADS TOO.

The poor guy. I guess some people just have all the bad luck.

I was tricked..

[xchino]

I'll admit it, they got me once. I don't think the company was Bonzi, but this company had a really dirty trick :) They had a regular FUI, then an extra control menu graphic on top of the regular FUI, in a window with no menus. I instantly recognized it as another fake windows popup, and as I have been so accustomed to doing, I went to close it down, and clicked on the added destroy window button graphic and was of course taken to some site with no interest to me.

That's just dirty..

Bonzi's buddies are getting out of hand.

[Prince_Ali]

It took me days to convince my girlfriend that bonzi buddy was not her friend. The same thing happened with comet cursor. I had to explain to her that you can get southpark cursors without a special program. It is just too easy to fool people into installing this software. I basically do the maintenance on all of my friends' computers (for free), and this spyware stuff is getting out of hand. In my opinion it is already more hostile to the average user than spam and viruses combined.

Yum.

[Renraku]

I worked at a corporate office for about a week before everyone got laid off. Naturally, they learned of my skill with computers and wanted me to fix them during breaktime and such. Being nice, I did. AOL Companion. AOL. Bonzi buddy. Gator. Weathercast. With these programs and Windows open only, newly booted, the machines had about 20% free system resources. Considering they'd be working and Gator or Bonzi buddy would popup and make noise and disturb them, how much damage is it doing? How much fun is it to be in the middle of a big data entry project, in the 'zone' and you get disturbed by a gigantic monkey with no 'off' button that wants to eat/nap/take your money? Not very much, I'd imagine. So I uninstalled everything. AOL Companion, Bonzi buddy, Gator, Weathercast, but I left AOL on non-startup. Just for their convenience. Next day same thing happens. "I was just clicking the targets and..." The targets. Isn't it illegal to say you've won something and you've really won nothing? Not even a high score on the high score list. But you've just won SPYWARE for your mad banner-clicking skills. Don't get me started on how illegal things like Xupiter should be to put on someone's computer without their permission. Even if their computer gracefully accepts the file and will run it, it still should require the users' authorization. And none of those "Installing.." boxes that just pop up with a progress bar and no cancel button or X, either.

So how much did the sharks collect?

[sulli]

We know the consumers got nothing, but how many new BMWs are being bought with the settlement cash?

hosts file

[sdibb]

Interestingly, bonzi.com has been returning connection refused all day. This is usually one of the net's busiest sites.

I never would have noticed.

notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

127.0.0.1 casino.bonzi.com
127.0.0.1 download.bonzi.com
127.0.0.1 images.bonzi.com
127.0.0.1 www.bonzi.com
127.0.0.1 www.bonzibuddy.com

DOS these boxen?

[Mysticalfruit]

I'm usually very much against internet vigilantism, but I would think if any company deserved to have their boxes DOS'd these creeps do.

Having had several relatives fall into one of their traps only to call me pleading for help and explaining how they got this error message that their computer was "under performing" and that this software would fix everything and now windows can't find this "Registry" thing.

Then again, when I worked in the corporate helpdesk I had a user call me one day complaining that his computer didn't work... upon further discussion it came to light that he ran out of disk space so he deleted all his (we'll as many as he could before his computer started freaking out) DLL's off the machine.