Legal Virus WARNING

[danielwill]

You probably never read those long "End User License Agreements" (known in the trade as EULA). But if you don't, they could come back and bite you (or at least your computer.

www.slashdot.org reports: "There is a new virtual postcard from Friend Greetings, owned by Permissioned Media that prompts you to install their software to view the card.

You are then presented with a EULA granting them permission to e-mail all the Contacts in your Outlook Address Book!

Those people are presented with an e-mail from you telling them they have a greeting card to pick up. So, this thing spreads like a worm, but includes a EULA that 99% of users won't take the time to read.

Symantec isn't detecting this as a virus, but does have <a hrref="http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/friendgreetings.html
">information about it on their site. </a>In addition to the worm-like way it spreads, it also installs spyware designed to deliver ads to your computer. You also give them permission to install further software any time they want!

In my opinion this is completely nasty, but it's all clearly in the EULA that you must agree to before it installs the software." So it may not be ethical, but it may very well be legal.

See <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/25/1636215&mode=thread&tid=95
">SlashDot</a> for more

So--READ LICENSE AGREEMENTS (yes, it's tedious, but important), and avoid anything from "Permissioned Media" or "FriendGreetings"

]) /\ |\| | (- |_
www.will-harris.com

[danielwill]

You probably never read those long "End User License Agreements" (known in the trade as EULA). But if you don't, they could come back and bite you (or at least your computer.

www.slashdot.org reports: "There is a new virtual postcard from Friend Greetings, owned by Permissioned Media that prompts you to install their software to view the card.

You are then presented with a EULA granting them permission to e-mail all the Contacts in your Outlook Address Book!

Those people are presented with an e-mail from you telling them they have a greeting card to pick up. So, this thing spreads like a worm, but includes a EULA that 99% of users won't take the time to read.

Symantec isn't detecting this as a virus, but does have <a hrref="http://www.sarc.com/avcenter/venc/data/friendgreetings.html
">information about it on their site. </a>In addition to the worm-like way it spreads, it also installs spyware designed to deliver ads to your computer. You also give them permission to install further software any time they want!

In my opinion this is completely nasty, but it's all clearly in the EULA that you must agree to before it installs the software." So it may not be ethical, but it may very well be legal.

See <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/25/1636215&mode=thread&tid=95
">SlashDot</a> for more

So--READ LICENSE AGREEMENTS (yes, it's tedious, but important), and avoid anything from "Permissioned Media" or "FriendGreetings"

]) /\ |\| | (- |_
www.will-harris.com

[raffon]

Here's the Norton link

http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ven...greetings.html

Ich bin ein New Yorker

[gwpriester]

I cannot think of how many End User Agreements I have not read. I will start reading them as of now [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://www.gwpriester.com">
www.gwpriester.com </a>


The Xara Xone

[pduggan]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Security integrator Integralis warns that the guerrilla marketing tactics used by FriendGreetings.com could easily be applied to spread more malicious payloads.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>(From http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27794.html)

Peter

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?

[jens g.r. benthien]

Hey girls & guys,

did you recently update your Windows system? Or Direct X? Or the Media Player? If so, did you read the license agreement? Same stuff in there, so it's the small company that learned from the big rat! If you install any of these updates, you agree that your computer will download modules without notifying you...

I hope that the judges will split Microsoft asap into tiniest fragments to give us users some relief.

jens g.r. benthien
designer
http://www.sacalobra.de

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If you don't know how to dream you'll never be a designer.
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