October 4th, 2005
Lawsuit filed against adware company eXact Advertising
I just got word of a lawsuit filed against adware company eXact Advertising on September 27 by law firm Shalov Stone & Bonner LLP in US District Court Southern District of New York. The suit was filed on behalf of plaintiff Yehuda Michaekli as a class action complaint with jury trial demanded. The complaint alleges that eXact Advertising
"has unlawfully used and damaged Plaintiff’s rights to use and enjoy his personal property. Without Plaintiff’s authorization, eXact Advertising infected Plaintiff’s computer with harmful and offensive spyware programs by deceptively bundling its malicious software with "free" games, cursors, screensavers and other small software programs. These harmful programs would then secretly track Plaintiff’s Internet use, thereby invading his privacy and damaging his computer. [...] In addition to invading Plaintiff’s privacy, eXact Advertising’s unwanted spyware and adware programs illicitly caused Plaintiff’s computer to slow down, consume excessive bandwidth [...], monopolize computer resources including memory, pixels and monitor space, and disable or destroy user installed computer software ultimately causing many computers to crash."
The counts include Trespass to Chattels, Deceptive Acts and Practices, False Advertising, Negligence and Unjust Enrichment, Click to view full PDF document.
EXact Advertising’s products include Bargain Buddy, CashBack, NaviSearch and eXact Downloader.
IANAL, but I have witnessed the behavior of the eXact Advertising software as described in the complaint and have seen it downloaded along with other adware through security exploits. This is the third such class action lawsuit filed this year against adware companies. In September, a complaint was filed against 180solutions and in April Direct Revenue was the target of a similar lawsuit.
Thanks to Ben Edelman for the heads up and PDF.
