No Honor Among Malware Purveyors

metalion writes "True to the saying 'no honor among thieves,' adware company, Avenue Media, is finding that competing adware company, DirectRevenue, is detecting and deleting their software. Now Avenue Media is crying foul and have filed a lawsuit against DirectRevenue stating that DirectRevenue 'knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers.' DirectRevenue acknowledges that it may uninstall competing applications in its user license agreement. A researcher at Harvard University, Ben Edelman, reasons that 'Once the computer is infected with 10 different unwanted programs, the person is likely to take some action to address the situation.' Just how far will adware companies go to continue to attempt to bombard us with their ads?"

This is great!!

[Tetsugaku-San]

Maybe they will destroy each other in an orgy of program deletion :D Neverthought spyware would be spyware removal . . . . .

Spyware filing a lawsuit?

[CrazyJim1]

Reminds me of the stories of people calling the police because someone stole their weed.

How far will they go?

[sczimme]

Just how far will adware companies go to continue to attempt to bombard us with their ads?

A) As far as they think they need to go
B) As far as they are allowed to go and remain on the right side of the law
C) As far as they need to go despite the law
D) All of the above
E) Profit?
F) CowboyNeal

a pit

[gotem]

great idea, put all the malware to fight, and the survivor gets to be deleted by spybot.
More fun than core wars

Sometimes...

[Ev0lution]

Now Avenue Media is crying foul and have filed a lawsuit against DirectRevenue

Sometimes you just wish that both sides can lose...

Familiar...

[which way is up]

Two programs fighting for dominance on my computer? Brings me back to my AOL on Windows days.

Re:Too funny

[pete-classic]

Hopefully it will stop with me complaining about you complaining about them complaining about each other.

-Peter

Mr. Kettle's comments upon Mr. Pot's reflectivitiy

[wowbagger]

...knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers.

Mr. Kettle, a question upon your comments about Mr. Pot's absense of reflectivity to EM radiation between 680nm and 430nm....

Really, doesn't ALL adware exceed authorize access to user's computers?

Not so great...

[Ayaress]

I'd like nothing better than to see two spyware companies destroy one another in a glorious battle to the death, but I'd much rather they NOT do it on MY harddrive.

What's fair is fair

[Anonymous Coward]

I think AvenueMedia deserves to be compensated for this. Let's give their owners the nicer of the two jail cells.

Spy Vs. Spy

[SCOX_Free]

Am I the only one who thought of MAD magazine's Spy Vs. Spy when I read this? Didn't they both end up killing eachother everytime?

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Too many geek quotes to apply here

[genner]

Two ads enter one ad leaves!

There can be only one!

Gah.. my brain.

This is great.

[baadfood]

Enough shit like this and no Judge will ever take an EULA seriously.

Cool!

[MillionthMonkey]

We may be witnessing the establishment of an entirely new biome with its own form of species and evolution.

What spyware writers need to do now is add the following features to their code:

• Random mutations
• Breeding and crossover with other spyware programs so that chunks of similar malicious code are exchanged
• A fitness evaluation function

The fitness evaluation should take into account:

• A penalty for network infrastructure damage
• Number of competing spyware programs "eaten" by an individual
• Number of idiots knocked off the Internet

This reminds me...

[Hieremias]

This reminds me of the guys who reported to the police that their pot had been stolen [wftv.com]. Just goes to show not everyone was meant to be an entrepreneur, some are just wage-earners.

Re:Now here's an idea

[kahei]

Wait, I have a better idea... don't do that first bit and go straight to shooting the bastards!

Re:Too funny

[tomhudson]

Hey, this could be a Good Thing - an arms race among malware vendors to delete each others' crap.

Between that and expending resources suing each other, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Re:May I be the first

[CTalkobt]

>> Or 32nd as the case may be, to say:
>> Serves the fuckers right

Geesh. I was about to mark you as redundant before I posted this but then realized that you're claiming to be the 32nd one to post it, not the 1st.

*goes off looking for another person claiming to be the 32nd poster of Servers the **** right so he can mark them*

Wait, I posted.

Drat. Darnit. (^&(^*&^*

Mark me up/down according to your sense of humour.

I don't know about the rest of you..

[TiggertheMad]

...but this just made my christmas! Since Santa seems to think I have been a good boy, I have a few more things to ask for...

1) A video tape of rival gangs of spammers getting in knife fights over ISP bandwith 'turf'.

2) Microsoft's Yakuzza getting irritated with SCO's failures to bring down Linux, and doing drive-bys shootings to the board menbers.

3) George Bush Jr. getting in a sissy slap-fight with John Ashcroft over the pronunciation of the word 'Nucular'.

EULA

[Anonymous Coward]

So, if were bound to EULAs that aren't even seen during install...

Does that mean they're (adware companies) bound to any License I say applies to my computer?

Because I think I'll just add a text file to my C:\ that says "By installing any software on this computer you agree to pay the owner $100. In addition you agree to also pay him $10 for every pop-up ad he sees."

And then just find a good lawyer... "Well they should have read my EULA before hijacking my computer" is just about as ridiculous as the legal line of reasoning that makes adware "legal" in the first place.

So... Anybody want to represent me?

A vs P

[Yolegoman]

Whoever wins, we lose.

Re:When it will stop.

[Anonymous Coward]

I treasure my little pet tapeworm, he doesn't harm me. He's like my little stay-thin excercise buddy. Signed, Mary-Kate Olsen

EULA protected virus

[Naito]

someone needs to write one, then we can really test the legality of this spyware "it's (hidden) in the EULA!" crap.

Re:I hope the plaintif prevails

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine having your babysitter and yourself exchange 107 page contracts every time you went out to dinner

You must have a very understanding wife. If I went to dinner with my babysitter, the 107 page contract would be the least of my worries.

Re:Advertisers in general are going insane

[eric76]

I used to like to have fun with the sales men/women.

One time this one lady called and the conversation went like this:

Woman: Good afternoon. May I speak to Mrs eric76?
Me: No.
Woman: Why not?
Me: She's being punished and isn't allowed to speak to anyone for another week.
Woman (in a rather cautious voice): Oh! I see.

and then she hung up.

Another time I told a telemarketer that Mrs eric76 was busy screwing one of the neighbors.

My favorite was a woman from San Antonio that called for some kind of radio survey. I tried to see how long I could talk to her on the telephone and about anything but radio.

Every time she tried to ask me about radio stations in my area, I'd ask her a question about San Antonio.

Not only did I ask her about restraunts, I asked her about several friends of mine who lived in or near San Antonio. It turned out that she had never met any of them!