Lawsuit Against Adware Purveyor Dropped

A court dismissed a federal lawsuit against adware company Zango this week after the plaintiffs decided to drop the case.

The case, brought last year in Chicago, was dismissed with prejudice, which means the same plaintiffs can't bring the case again. The lawsuit was originally brought by one plaintiff; two others joined later.

Ken McGraw, Zango's executive vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer, said the dismissal showed that the company hadn't done anything unlawful in distributing its ad-serving software.

"This case vindicates us," McGraw said. "The plaintiffs, who thought they had a claim, spent a year wasting the court's time trying to figure out if they had a claim, figured out they didn't have one, and were willing to walk away entirely."

One of the plaintiffs' lawyers, Shawn Collins of The Collins Law Firm in Naperville, Illinois, said he withdrew the case because he wanted to bring a class-action suit, and didn't believe the three plaintiffs would be good representatives of a class.

"We voluntarily dismissed it," Collins said, "for the simple but very important reason that we didn't think, under these particular circumstances, we could get a class certified."

Collins added that he continued to seek other complainants who would be willing to bring a similar lawsuit against Zango, formerly known as 180solutions.

In the original lawsuit, Illinois resident Logan Simios charged that Zango ad-serving software was installed on his computer this year without his consent. He had asked the court to allow him to sue on behalf of himself as well as the estimated 20 million U.S. computer users who have had Zango's software on their computers since 2002, and "hundreds of thousands" of Illinois computer users who have had the program installed.

The dismissal marks the third time in the last two years that a lawsuit against Zango/180solutions has been dropped. But the company still faces criticism from some advocates, who say that consumers don't always consent before the software is downloaded on their computers. Earlier this year, the consumer advocacy group Center for Democracy & Technology filed a complaint against the company with the FTC, charging that the company's distribution practices "appear to be broadly unethical and in many cases, illegal."

The Collins Law Firm has been involved in other lawsuits against adware companies, including a class-action suit against Direct Revenue. That case was settled earlier this year, when Direct Revenue agreed to refrain from distributing adware on sites targeting children under 18, and from using the word "free" in banner ads--such as for "free screensavers"--unless those ads also state that the product is supported by adware. Direct Revenue also agreed to ensure that consumers agree to receive adware before any pop-up serving software is installed, among other terms.

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