Microsoft sues over 'malicious' online advertising

[WiseWebDude]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. has filed five lawsuits aimed at halting the flow of malicious online advertising. The Redmond, Wash., software maker filed the claims Thursday in Washington state court against five unknown individuals under the business names Soft Solutions, DirectAd, qiweroqw.com, ITmeter INC. and ote2008.info.

More >> [finance.yahoo.com ]

Good for them!

[bill]

Those are the ads with fake virus scans and the like. I like that term, "malvertisements," ads that can end up infecting computers with damaging software.

[kaled]

The police should be doing this - crazy!

It's well known that terrorist fund-raisers have been turning to cyber-crime for some time and still no-one in government (on either side of the pond) is prepared to tackle this. Considering that Obama is supposed to be tech-savvy, you would think this would be on his radar!

That said, I wish Microsoft well on this legal adventure.

Kaled.

[maximillianos]

I got one on my browser the other day. It was a "Windows" system message... only problem was I am running Linux... =)

[Bentler]

Yay!

[Erku]

Hope Mircrosoft ads will be more targeted after this.

[IanKelley]

The police should be doing this - crazy!

Careful what you ask for. Right now government (including the new admin) is so clueless about tech that the only thing they would accomplish by getting involved would be to hurt small to medium sized web business.

[swa66]

While I agree the defendants are most likely low life scum, the question is if Microsoft realy should be allow to step in and act as if they are the DA.

[kaled]

the only thing they would accomplish by getting involved would be to hurt small to medium sized web business.

If law enforcement agencies were instructed to hunt down the perpetrators (by following the money where appropriate) there should be no downside for any legitimate businesses - in fact, by making the web safer, business may even improve.

Alternatively, since Google seems to filter out the worst of these adverts pretty well one way or another, perhaps others could do the same if a sword were hung above their heads. (That said, I do wonder about some of the registry cleaners, etc. I've seen Google advertise!)

Kaled.

[potentialgeek]

I love this decision!

No way any government agency would go near it (because of its budget/priorities). No private person could justify the legal expense. (For MS it's a drop in the bucket.)

Great business move, great PR move.

p/g

[Seb7]

We've got a new government building (UK) opening up the road from me, purely to tackle serious cyber crime. I'm sure that department will get completely over loaded with requests and instantly outgrow their building.

[mack]

Problem is what can one country do, when the activity could originate from pretty much anywhere in the world.

Mack.

[blend27]

--- Problem is what can one country do ---

Mack, I think the more it is mentioned, the more the "Countries" that are on the !@#$ list will realize that investments are not going their way simply due to the fact that the rest of the world simply blocking the Access of the Coders / Programmers/ Simply People from those countries to the rest of the world(internet).

We are far away from that point, but it helps to get it on when Worldwide Brand as MS is taking it a level UP.

[DNattorney]

Boy, have we come a long way from the mid to late 1990's when "shareware and freeware" was really "shareware and freeware", and when a "free download" was a "free download", and when a "virus scanning app" was a "virus scanning app". I remember having a great time trying out all kinds of free apps off of Tucows back in the day, without any fear at all...

[fischermx]

While I agree the defendants are most likely low life scum, the question is if Microsoft realy should be allow to step in and act as if they are the DA.

I wonder. If I start to get fliers on the wipers of my car that say "Your chevy's engine is about to colapse, run some tests soon, blah, blah"
Would the car maker be allowed to step in?

Of course, there's no perfect analogy.