GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Netscape/AOL Loses an Important Spyware Appeal

Quoted from http://grc.com/default.htm

"Netscape/AOL Loses an Important Spyware Appeal

A little over two years ago we were very involved in, and brought a great deal of attention to, the file downloading spyware ( http://grc.com/downloaders.htm )being offered by Real Networks and Netscape/AOL. (The link above will take you to our original coverage of this.) Several people were so upset by the idea of Netscape receiving reports about every file they downloaded?from anywhere on the Internet?that they banded together to sue Netscape/AOL in a class action:

Wired News: Privacy Suit Targets Netscape http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37435,00.html

ZDNet News: AOL/Netscape hit with privacy lawsuit http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...600180,00.html

This lawsuit has been silently making its way through the courts until recently, on October 1st, 2002, Netscape/AOL lost an important appeal before New York's second circuit court. This paves the way for our courts to next determine whether Netscape/AOL did, as is being alleged, with their spyware, violate the Electronic Communications Privacy and Computer Fraud and Abuse Acts.

The appellate court's decision (37-page, 152k, PDF file) http://grc.com/miscfiles/netscrape.pdf

Despite the inevitable legal jargon, this document contains a great deal of interesting reading about "clickwrap" licenses and the enforceability of licenses for downloaded software."