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Charges Of Spyware Against 180Solutions, Direct Revenue And EXact
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-12-22
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Three companies were named as defendants in a class action suit filed yesterday in California Superior Court in San Joaquin County, charging distribution of spyware and malware. The companies' names include 180Solutions, Direct Revenue and eXact and the suit calls for them to stop distribution of their software and pay damages.
A tip goes to Alex Eckelberry for mentioning this suit on his blog. Attorney Martha Bronson filed the suit:
180SOLUTIONS, DIRECTREVENUE, EXACT ADVERTISING et al.,: This class action lawsuit alleges that these companies violate the general public's right to privacy and invade the privacy of individuals through unauthorized downloads of adware and spyware. The class action complaint further alleges that the software causes damages to computers by interferring with its processes and sometimes causing the computer to crash, slow or otherwise malfunction. Some of the software is disguised on a person's computer and near impossible to remove. The lawsuit seeks an injunction prohibiting the dispensing of the software and restitution of all income received from the dispensing of the software or advertising income and to pay the cost of removing or otherwise repairing the damage done to computers.
A spokesperson for 180Solutions said, "From what I've read of the complaint thus far, I'm confident we are on very solid ground."
This isn't the first time 180Solutions has had this type of problem though. The company filed a suit earlier this month against firewall company Zone Labs for calling their product spyware in the firewall product. The Zone Labs problem stems from Zone Labs also considering 180 Solutions products spyware and recommending against them.
This is one more issue that will affect ad revenues for these companies as word gets out. If the charges are true, these companies could be hard pressed to survive but other companies who've had problems of this type have survived in the past.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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