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Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

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Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#121

Post by ascagnel_ »

thedrbrian wrote: post #106
smeyer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you've been sued once for something, you cannot be sued again (and again, and again) Double jeopardy doesn't prevent someone from opting out of a class action lawsuit and suing separately. >hot coffee lawsuit The hot coffee case wasn't a class action lawsuit.

Also the hot coffee lawsuit wasn't as stupid as people make out. The McDonald's coffee really was hot and gave Stella Liebeck some nasty burns.

HBO ran a documentary on it and tort reform in general a few years ago; it wasn't just that she had been badly burned, but that there was a string of McDonald's coffee burn cases with smaller rewards and the jury felt that the company needed to be punished for negligence at that point. The award was many, many times larger than what Liebeck asked for.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#122

Post by Silhouette »

acdha wrote: post #43
wehadfun wrote: post #29

Suprise that no market their computers as "crapware free".

Microsoft's trying to create a premium “Signature Edition” category with that as the selling point: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/Signatur...

Thanks for sharing. I hadn't seen that before.

Apparently they do still include Windows Defender, which is described as "free anti-virus protection that never expires". Although it's a Microsoft product, I would place it close to third party junkware on the scale: in my experience, it often turns out to be the culprit if performance degrades over time, every now and then an update will completely break a box requiring some sort of restore disc or similar to get back up and running, and in any case it seems to add little value being so much less effective these days than a lot of other security software. At least it probably uninstalls cleanly if you do want to swap it out, though.

I found this an interesting, if somewhat inflammatory, criticism of the same Windows Signature programme:

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/mic...

Sadly, the UK version of the Microsoft Store seems to have a very limited range of devices available on the same basis.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#123

Post by dominicmauro »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #121
thedrbrian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the hot coffee lawsuit wasn't as stupid as people make out. The McDonald's coffee really was hot and gave Stella Liebeck some nasty burns.

HBO ran a documentary on it and tort reform in general a few years ago; it wasn't just that she had been badly burned, but that there was a string of McDonald's coffee burn cases with smaller rewards and the jury felt that the company needed to be punished for negligence at that point. The award was many, many times larger than what Liebeck asked for.

The punitive damages were also roughly the amount of money McDonald's makes selling coffee in one or two days, according to a contemporaneous WSJ report: http://www.business.txstate.edu/users/ds26/Business%20Law%20...

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#124

Post by neurotech1 »

btilly wrote: post #83
bradleyjg wrote: post #55

A year or eighteen months from now look for a settlement in the case. Each of the affected class members will be entitled to a $5 discount on an anti-virus product plus up to $25 if they can provide detailed documentation showing actual economic losses. Any money left over after the coupons and payments are made will be given to a charity hand picked by the plaintiff's attorney. There will also be injunctive relief i…

This is true, but do you know why it happens? The US has a protection against double jeopardy. If you've been sued once for something, you cannot be sued again (and again, and again) for the same thing. In most cases this is a good thing. It means that once the case is done, it is really done. But companies have learned how to take advantage of it. If they think they are going to have to fight a class action lawsuit…

They can be sued multiple times for multiple instances of the same injury type. This has been known to happen involving ADA accommodation & injury lawsuits where a state contracted provider doesn't learn their lesson the first time. The original lawsuit specifies plaintiffs, injury and covered time period, and usually requests an injunction to "prevent" future injury. The original lawsuit is settled, but the provider fails to take reasonable action, and so a new lawsuit is filed. The second lawsuit is usually not settled on "modest terms".

The "hot coffee" lawsuit was well justified, as the burns were serious and McDonalds did not learn from previous instances.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer etc. please ask your lawyer for legal advice.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#125

Post by ska »

thedrbrian wrote: post #106
smeyer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you've been sued once for something, you cannot be sued again (and again, and again) Double jeopardy doesn't prevent someone from opting out of a class action lawsuit and suing separately. >hot coffee lawsuit The hot coffee case wasn't a class action lawsuit.

Also the hot coffee lawsuit wasn't as stupid as people make out. The McDonald's coffee really was hot and gave Stella Liebeck some nasty burns.

It's a terrible example for many reasons. One that is more often misapplied than not.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#126

Post by tracker1 »

xorcist wrote: post #85
pavs wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people who actually cared about the superfish incident will remember this, and thats where it counts and where it will hurt. Everyday joe couldn't care less about superfish.

It's a relevant question whether enough people care. The Sony rootkit scandal was (almost) as bad as this, yet it didn't make a dent in their computer sales and the Playstation sold better than ever.

As someone who hasn't bought a Sony labelled product since the rootkit scandal, not sure how much I agree... they definitely would have gotten far more from me when I've bought a couple large TVs, and two stereo systems since then... I even held out on a Bluray player for a long time (I didn't buy sony labelled at least).

Though it's akin to avoiding Bank America Corp in practice, they have their hands in every pot.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#127

Post by rhino369 »

a3n wrote: post #48
belorn wrote: post #2

Going through the list of complaints, it really sound as it should have been a criminal procedure, not civil. One then wonder why that isn't the case here.

It would seem to be a violation of the DMCA, as it is software preinstalled to allow the eventual side-stepping of the end-user's security measures (using an HTTPS-capable browser). "It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... EDIT: Considering the huge number of victi…

Does superfish circumvent copyright media protection? Not really. It's a huge stretch to call https a form of drm.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#128

Post by dean »

btilly wrote: post #83
bradleyjg wrote: post #55

A year or eighteen months from now look for a settlement in the case. Each of the affected class members will be entitled to a $5 discount on an anti-virus product plus up to $25 if they can provide detailed documentation showing actual economic losses. Any money left over after the coupons and payments are made will be given to a charity hand picked by the plaintiff's attorney. There will also be injunctive relief i…

This is true, but do you know why it happens? The US has a protection against double jeopardy. If you've been sued once for something, you cannot be sued again (and again, and again) for the same thing. In most cases this is a good thing. It means that once the case is done, it is really done. But companies have learned how to take advantage of it. If they think they are going to have to fight a class action lawsuit…

> THE COMPANY will go to some lawyers, and say, "If you bring this lawsuit against us, we will cooperate fully, cave in quickly, and we'll settle on modest terms

Hmm. I wonder if the law firm bringing the case, specified in the docket as PRITZKER LEVINE LLP, has any history of doing this.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#129

Post by cyrus_ »

tokenizerrr wrote: post #93
diyorgasms wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only get windows updates if your network drivers work. With the Lenovos, Dells, and HPs I've been coming across early, Windows 7 and 8 are broken out of the box, usually with no network drivers. Strangely enough, Linux often works flawlessly with these same computers.

I've never not seen wired networking work. It's been at least five years since I've handled a laptop where wireless did not work out of the box.

With my Lenovo Thinkpad t450s, neither wired nor wireless networking work when you reinstall Windows 8.1 on your own.

Re: Class action lawsuit filed against Lenovo over Superfish

#130

Post by tokenizerrr »

cyrus_ wrote: post #129
tokenizerrr wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never not seen wired networking work. It's been at least five years since I've handled a laptop where wireless did not work out of the box.

With my Lenovo Thinkpad t450s, neither wired nor wireless networking work when you reinstall Windows 8.1 on your own.

Wow, that is genuinely surprising. Good to know.
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