Lawsuit Rundown

Law, Technology

The legal field has been popping with interesting technology-related lawsuits lately.

From the “Disclosure in Advertising” department we have:

Lawsuit Says HP Printer Cartridges Die Before Use

A Georgia woman has sued Hewlett-Packard Co., claiming the ink cartridges for their printers are secretly programmed to expire on a certain date, in some cases rendering them useless before they are even installed in a printer.

[...]

HP ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But, the suit claims, those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty.

“The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer,” the suit said.

This case should be interesting if for no other reason than the determination of how it was discovered that the smart chip has this expiration date. Given the usual requirements of “no reverse engineering of technologies” that computer equipment and software companies use with just about everything these days, it should prove telling as to how the expiration was discovered and determined.

[NOTE: This suit was filed last Thursday and so does not fall under the provisions of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. If the class wins most class members will likely only see a coupon for their troubles.]

From the “Bait & Switch Prevention” Department:
Dell sued over bait-and-switch charges

A California law firm has slapped Dell with a class action lawsuit charging the computer giant with “systematically deceiving” its customers.

The suit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on Feb. 14, seeks class action status in California and accuses Dell of “bait and switch” practices, false advertising, fraud and deceit in sales and advertising, and breach of contract.

If this suit survives what I would expect to be an early motion for summary judgment, then we could start seeing ads on television asking if the dude got a Dell. They won’t be as painful to watch as Vioxx or Phen-Fen commercials since having Dell cheat you out of some money isn’t likely to cause a heart attack or stroke. The downside (and why you may not get to see requests for you to call the Emergency Dell Hotline) is that any such suit will be subject to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. That will mean that Dell can’t get out of this for a few coupons that will never be used since the plaintiffs’ attorneys won’t want to link their fees to an hourly rate or redemption rates. The case would almost certainly go to trial and attorneys’ fees will be a huge looming issue.

From the “No Technology is 100% Accurate” Division:
InfoWorld: Microsoft settles with Dutch site over AntiSpyware row

A Dutch Web site claimed victory in a David and Goliath battle against Microsoft this week after the software giant’s AntiSpyware program flagged the Dutch company’s homepage as malicious content.

Microsoft has agreed to compensate and apologize to the operator of Dutch directory site Startpagina.nl for designating the site as a “browser hijacker” in the beta version of its free AntiSpyware software, according to Startpagina.nl Director Bert Wiggers. The amount of the compensation is not being disclosed but the apology is public, as Microsoft has agreed to keep an acknowledgement of the error on its Dutch Web property for four weeks, according to Wiggers.

Of course, no list of legal action in the last month would be complete without the ubiquitious spammer (or “spimmer” in this case) -gets-what-is-coming-to-him action:
InfoWorld: Arrest, but no relief from IM spam

A New York man was arrested last week and charged with sending out unsolicited instant messages, marking the first known case of criminal action being taken against someone accused of sending “spim,” or instant message (IM) spam.

Anthony Greco of Cheektowaga, New York, was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Feb. 16, and charged with violating the federal CAN-SPAM Act, after the 18 year-old allegedly sent over 1.5 million instant messages advertising mortgage refinancing services and adult pornography to users of MySpace.com’s IM service, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Debra W. Yang.

While the criminal CAN-SPAM act violations make for interesting reading, they are almost certainly tossed in as an afterthought. The real story is here:

In the U.S. Attorney’s case, authorities allege that, starting in October 2004, Greco fraudulently created thousands of accounts at MySpace, an online community in which members can write Web logs, share pictures and send instant messages. Greco sent spim messages from the accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s statement.

The young man allegedly contacted MySpace.com and demanded that he be given exclusive rights to send commercial e-mail to MySpace.com users. When MySpace.com did not respond, he threatened to share his technique for sending spim messages to MySpace.com users with the spamming community and “open a Pandora’s box of Spam” on MySpace’s network, the statement said.

[...]

Prosecutors are charging Greco with threatening to cause damage to MySpace.com’s computers and with intent to extort, in addition to the CAN-SPAM Act violations. He faces a maximum penalty of 18 years in federal prison if convicted on all three offenses, the U.S. Attorney’s statement said.

Extortion always raises the authorities’ hackles. I would be surprised if it were not the extortion attempt that did not drive this case instead of the CAN-SPAM violations.

Got more? Leave ‘em in the comments!

MickC @ February 23, 2005