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| SecurityProNews > News > Security News > Spitzer In Spat With Sony… Again | |||||||||||||
You knew it was only a matter of time before New York Attorney General (AG) Eliot Spitzer went after Sony for the rootkit row. Spitzer has battled Sony before and won. This malware debacle for Sony BMG continues to haunt them because it's starting to hit them where it counts… in the bottom line. Eliot Spitzer has no problem putting companies in the vice when he decides they've done something wrong. He tangled with Sony BMG earlier this year in a nasty little payola scandal costing Sony a few million. If New York laws are anything akin to Texas laws, Sony might right another fat check to Spitzer's office. While Spitzer's office hasn't said they would sue Sony at this point, the possibility is certainly there. So let's update events a bit. After all the problems listed previously, ending in Texas filing suit against Sony for each instance of malware distribution, New York fired off its own salvo. Spitzer said he sent his people out to buy the CDs a week after the recall was issued. His office claimed they hit major retailers like Wal-Mart, Sam Goody, Circuit City, Wal-Mart and Virgin Megastore. The statement from Spitzer's office said all of the discs were easily accessible and didn't appear to have been sent back. Spitzer's office requested customers not to buy the CDs in question and if they have to, then don't put the discs into PCs. Businessweek quoted Spitzer's statement: "It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on the shelves during the busiest shopping days of the year. I strongly urge all retailers to heed the warnings issued about these products, pull them from the distribution immediately, and ship them back to Sony." This opens up another question though. Are these rather large and established retailers liable for distributing the rootkits too? At first, certainly not; they could say they didn't know and then they were waiting for Sony's response. Now that Sony has issued the recall, could these companies be held responsible? Reading Spitzer's statement, one could certainly pick up that possibility. One would think these companies would want this fixed ASAP because it's affecting sales dramatically. Sony's distribution of malware has also created problems for the artists on those CDs as well. The group Van Zant, for example, was one of the first to be tagged in this whole fiasco back when Russinovich first found this business. According to Amazon, "Get Right with the Man" dropped from 887 to 1,392 to 25,802 and then gone. All this happened in less than a week. It's no surprise though as some consumer groups are calling for a boycott. Groups like Sonyboycott.us have been attacking Sony from their blog for a while now. While the record studios may not care as much, the artists do. One artist in the 52, Trey Anastasio, just cut a new album called "Shine." It was tagged with the spyware and it hit the 15,000 mark in the first week of sales and the following week, sales were down to 7,000. Needless to say they weren't happy. If Sony's not careful, some of these artists could end up suing for breach of contract or something similar. One has to think this will affect Sony across the board too. In the end, Sony shot themselves in the foot continuously. They've made one bad call after another. This is the busiest shopping time of the year. This isn't the time to have problems with your discs because people use these to fill stockings and some people just want them. Also, when people buy these discs to go onto their sporty new iPod, there will be anger. View All Articles by John Stith About the Author: |
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