A list not worth saving

And…

Adieu.

Via Information Week:

“Google includes millions of parked domains and error pages that have little or no content, and that result in practically zero conversions, in both its Content Network and its Search Network,” the complaint alleges. “Given the low quality of these parked domain and error pages, advertisers would not want to spend their advertising budgets on these distribution networks. However, Google designed its network in such a way that it was virtually impossible to opt out of the AdSense for Domains and/or AdSense for Errors programs.”

I believe this complaint has some merit, and don’t think I’m alone in saying that parked pages full of ads suck too. I’ve also been thinking the parking business would be needing a new business model, sooner or later. Maybe it’s sooner.

(h/t Search Engine Land)

Ohio University has struggled as of late with hackers. Actually, struggle isn’t doing the problem justice. The institution has been hacked time and time….uh…..again. And after they ignored warnings over faulty security to boot.

Now they are being sued. Class action status is being pursued, with ongoing credit monitoring and damages for identity theft losses being the bounty.

As John Burns, OU’s legal affairs director noted on the lawsuit:

“We’ll review it and we’ll defend it.”

How do you defend five hacks, and a possible class action lawsuit seeking reasonable assistance with potential problems caused solely by your negligence? Or better, why do you defend against it?

The lack of accountability, as well as the arrogance, in institutions, is astonishing.

It took a while, but despite Bank of America’s public relations move in the security realm, they are not going to escape the legal system over their massive customer data “leak.”

After notifying each customer for which data was pilfered and offering free credit monitoring services, they are finally getting sued.

We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again - Elliot Spitzer suing evil-doers. Yes, Elliot is at it again, this time suing spyware vendor Intermix for infecting millions of computers with redirect code, silly toolbars that do nothing, and tons of popups. Best guess is more than 3.7 installs in New York alone.

Boy I sure do wish I didn’t spend all of my time on my PowerBook and my Linux slab, or I too could see some of these neat little tricks.

Meanwhile, lets just hope Elliot has consumers best interests in mind, and has thought through all the issues before pulling the trigger on this one.

I don’t think that this one has a leg to stand on, but I picked it up via Spam Kings: Spam Kings Blog: Cruisin’ for a legal bruisin’. It seems Mark Mumma - I take it he is some type of sys admin/small ISP/something else I can’t quite figure out - has made a little side career out of suing spammers. Now they have bit back.

I have a few questions/points about this…..

Now I may be way off base here, but I actually see some problems with this scenario:

If Mark has made a little side business out of this, is he seeding lists in order to get spammed, in order to sue, in order to settle, in order to pay the mortgage? Its the tendency to attempt settlement that makes me suspicious here. If so, that is going to catch up with him, unless it already has.

They are now in a different court than usual, and Mark’s lawyer is screaming jurisdiction? I think there is more to that than meets the eye. Is the spammer or target company working or based out of there? Either way, they must think they have a strong case. If so, I think Mark is in deeper than he may like to be. Virginia is tough on spammers, really tough. Any spammer (or partner) who has the guts to sue in that state has something up their sleeve.

Whatever the issues here, which we will likely find out, and soon, we can be pretty sure this little game has backfired on Mark. I doubt he will be pulling this trick again, and I suspect he is now going to get a lot more spam (due to the publicity).

Lesson: If you want to make a game of suing folks for a living, make sure you have deep pockets, because you won’t win them all.

For more on this story, you can check out Spammer Sues Spam Victim, Continues Spamming Him.