'Lenovo, Superfish put smut on my system' – class-action lawsuit

A California woman has filed the first lawsuit against Lenovo and Superfish over the pair's adware debacle, claiming the "malware" injected smutty pictures into her web browser on her Yoga laptop. A class-action filing [PDF] in the state's southern district court recounts how Jessica Bennett bought a Lenovo Yoga 2 laptop in …

[Mad Chaz]

"Right now our main priority is working on fixes to the SDK, once it's ready we can deal with the site and DDOS attach which is not a priority right now,"

In other words, we're hard at work hiding any and all cash we made so we close shop and vanish before someone comes knocking at the door asking questions we'll need a lawyer for.

[Sokolik]

What he said

"Land of the Free™", love it! But then, of course, I'm a Left-Coast-Leftie. At all events, thanks for the chuckle.

[Someone Else]

This is going to be FUN!!

I'll get the popcorn....

Oh, to be a class action lawyer at this point in time!

[Richard Taylor 2]

Re: This is going to be FUN!!

Surely Land of the Fee

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing a few noughts?

"Her class-action filing reckons affected citizens should get up to $10,000 each from the PC giant [...]"

Shirley the usual claim in these sorts of cases is at least $1m?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: the usual claim in these sorts of cases is at least $1m?

Total. Then it gets divided between all the claimants.

[All names Taken]

Best solution is ...

... EU (okay, Germany) approaches ARM and asks for a a hardware, firmware, software arrangement that is a bit more secure than what is presently on the market.

EU tools up (Greece and Spain?) to produce quality stuff at bargain basement prices and further annoy the G by commissioning a European search engine.

If not, why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Best solution is ...

...I take you've never actually encountered software created by previous EU-backed European consortia? It represents a degree of "designed by committee, approved by politicians" of Mongolian proportions.

[PacketPusher]

Re: Best solution is ...

The problem with these class action suits is the lawyers get all the money. The people in the class get a discount on their next purchase of the same or similar product.

[Tom 13]

Re: The problem with these class action suits is the lawyers get all the money.

That and given "the total bill could be more than $5m, it's claimed," the company has an incentive to NOT make it an open and shut case. Even though they'll eventually lose, the total on the settlement isn't likely to rise, until the case is settled, they still get to make interest on the money they are setting aside to pay for the lawsuit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Best solution is ...

Spain - maybe. Greece - you gotta be kidding.

Greece economic problems are because iit is not producing anything. It is a mixture of mob and benefits economy. Just get on top of the Parthenon on a sunny day, look around at the sprawling metropolis around you and ask yourself WTF are all these 780k people doing in a city that has no industry to speak of. The answer is - they go to state jobs. Ones where you get an extra week of holiday pay to a nice rounded total in excess of one month a year by just sitting in front of the computer.

This (the massive benefits and state apparatus culture) is however only a fraction of the problem and a small one too. The big problem is that the country is being run by unions and industry associations. Having two pharmacies across the road from another? Forget it. The industry association (or to be more precise the mob) will not allow it. As a result the minimal distance between them in rural area is measured in tens of kilometers. Competition? What competition. Transport - same story. The agricultural produce tended to by season workers from Romania, Bulgaria and illegal immigrants from the Middle East may rot in the fields, but there will be _NO_ more trucks than the trucker union will allow. I know people from outside Greece who have tried (under the delusion that Greece is an Eu country) to start transport business there. They pulled out after having all of their fleet torched or vandalized. We can continue with ferries, etc - it is pervasive and across the board. On top of that the mob leadership is _NOT_ paying any taxes too.

So the delusion that you will produce anything in Greece is beyond funny. Spain - yes. Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia, Czech republic - YES, YES and Oh, YES. Greece - you are making me laugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The big problem is that the country is being run by unions and industry associations

No, the problem is corruption. Whether a corrupt business or a corrupt union, it's the corruption that's the problem, not the concept of the institution.

Massive derail btw, this is about adware and security not your UKIP fantasies.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re: The big problem is that the country is being run by unions and industry associations

"Whether a corrupt business or a corrupt union, it's the corruption that's the problem, not the concept of the institution."

Totally wrong. It is the concept of the institution that makes the corruption possible or, rather, more probable.

[Tom 13]

Re: It is the concept of the institution

Meh. Chicken and egg problem on whether the corruption begins on its own or is inherent in the institution.

Of course, once it's started the problem is, it's one massive multiplicative (exponential?) feedback loop. Which is why all to frequently the only way these things end is a return to violence and anarchy.

[Midnight]

Re: The big problem is that the country is being run by unions and industry associations

"Totally wrong. It is the concept of the institution that makes the corruption possible or, rather, more probable."

No, it's really about ethics in games journalism.

[Yag]

Re: Best solution is ...

"...look around at the sprawling metropolis around you and ask yourself WTF are all these 780k people doing in a city that has no industry to speak of."

Sounds like London.

[Ted's Toy]

Does this not apply equally to M.S. Dell, HP and other garbage distributors of systems? Be it software or hardware systems.

[Conundrum1885]

This is why

The first thing I do when a new laptop arrives is the hard disk gets ripped out and stored safely or at least forensically imaged, THEN I get to work nuke&paving it and putting Windows or preferably Xubuntu on it.

I feel sorry for the people affected by this, Lenovo should fess up and pay out, if needs be recalling all the affected machines and if it can't be repaired offering a full refund.

Or be nice and send out an SSD with a clean Win8.1 on it, thereby giving customers a nice present for their trouble.

[Daniel B.]

Re: This is why

Or be nice and send out an SSD with a clean Win8.1 on it, thereby giving customers a nice present for their trouble.

Giving Windows 8.1 is the opposite of a nice present. Better off with Windows 7, or a nice Linux distro. But not Windows 8.x.

[Delbert]

Class action? no just reimburse my wife for the cost of getting the resulting malware removed by the local computershop $150 to purge right down to reserved bios partition level and reinstall windows 8

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you are reinstalling, why not install Windows 7, instead of the cancer that is Windows 8?

[localzuk]

Windows 8/8.1, quite simply, is much faster than Windows 7. Disk IO is a good chunk quicker on its own.

So, as much as Windows 8's TIFKAM interface is infuriating, the core of the OS is pretty good.

[Daniel B.]

I'd rather have a slow I/O OS that lets me do my job quickly, than a fast I/O OS that makes me spend 3x the time doing my daily work.

Of course, I chose neither: I jumped to OSX when all laptops turned into "Windows 8 or bust". Well played MS, I chose bust.

[localzuk]

I don't actually get that attitude to be honest. Mac OS has many of its own problems which can and will slow you down.

My workflow simply has very little interaction with TIFKAM, and it is still possible to install a third party start menu if you *really* need it. Maybe its down to my never actively looking for and clicking icons - I always just press the Windows key and start typing the name of what I want - same as I did in Windows 7.

To me though, faster IO drives a real increase in productivity due to reduced processing times for various tasks that swap to disk etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

Too bad for Lenovo, even if it isn't anyone who gets malware on their computer from any source will be blaming them.

Even though this was (supposedly) not installed on their business PC lines, the publicity is going to damage their reputation and cause sales there to decline. The people recommending or making purchase decisions are going to be well aware of the whole Superfish fiasco and not want to have anything to do with Lenovo after this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

I was reading the BBC News today on my 3 month old Lenovo and got an ad for buying a cheap MP.

[earl grey]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

"got an ad for buying a cheap MP."

If it's a good price, you may as well get two.

[Francis Boyle]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

Always buy one from each party just to be sure.

[crayon]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

"If it's a good price, you may as well get two."

There are 2 fewer to choose from now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31603202

[Tom 13]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

It wouldn't surprise me. And I think I've come across something in the last week or so that shows an emerging meme for yoga pr0n, so she could have been dead center in the middle of it.

[Tom 35]

Re: Is Superfish really showing porn ads?

Even if it was inserting ads for dish soap it's still malware.

[Da Weezil]

The morality of this disturbs me, When I type in a url, I expect my browser to connect to the site I have requested, not a facsimile, or anything that has been tainted by the hand of an adware firm, only the site as published by the owner.

So in my book this sort of malware *IS WRONG* , and the assertion by the jerks behind this worthless garbage they have done nothing wrong shows how morally bankrupt they are, they need to realise that their desire for a free lunch off of my web use is WRONG.

For a manufacturer to be installing this is worse, and Im sorry but I could never trust a lenovo machine now, unless it came with separate genuine windows installation media, which is how it SHOULD be anyway. I have never liked or trusted the crapware loaded installation partition stupidity - which also means you lose your installation media if the drive dies.

Thank god for pcdecrapifier!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but did Lenovo install this kind of stuff before it went Chinese?

[Tom 13]

re: before it went Chinese?

Irrelevant in this case I think. Because it's the consumer division, their margins are thin, even for the Chinese. So they're inclined to put crapware on kit. Such decisions are usually made by marketing droids not techs. So I think it could have happened even if the laptops were coming from IBM. Probably a bit more likely in China since there you can get shot for disagreeing with the boss, but possible elsewhere too.

[PNGuinn]

Re: re: before it went Chinese?

Can anyone here enlighten me what possible use to man or beast "Marketing" are?

It seems to me that they are simply a bunch of corrupt mindless jerks who swan about deafened by whalesong and blinded by josstick smoke somewhere between the customer and sales people and the rest of the organisation, royally screwing everything up.

Once again Douglas Adams got it spot on.

[Anonymous Coward]

The morality of this disturbs me

I mean, the sharks and vultures follow-up. But hey that's expected in this day and age, so I'd better stay cool :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. This makes the case for OS installation disks to be a legal requirement for any PC sold with a bundled OS, even a Free one.

It should be two disks:

Disk 1: The OS install disk exactly as the OS vendor intended it and absolutely nothing else. The PC vendor can print their logo on the physical disk label but that is it. They are not to fiddle with one single bit of the disk image.

Disk 2: Driver and documentation bundles plus OPTIONAL software/crapware. Each item to be easily individually installable and each item to be clearly and honestly described in terms of its functionality and ongoing costs after the free trial period where applicable so the user can decide what they want without being tricked. Oh and no malware at all. (Jibbers Crabst! I am ashamed to work in an industry where it has become necessary to explicitly say "no malware"!)

This should not just be accepted good practice. It should be the law. When a punter buys a PC they are buying the PC and once full payment is made it belongs to them and should not remain an instrument of its vendor. If PC vendors want to retain ongoing ownership of PCs for their whole lifecycle then they need to pursue a rental model where the punter can just stop paying for and return the PC if it gets to be a too much of a pain in the arse. And even then, no bloody malware!

[Dangermouse 1]

Remember when Belkin did something similar in their routers? Another company to add to the shit-list!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/07/help_my_belkin_router/

[druck]

Only what they deserve

The bit I find hard to swallow is Lenovo support denied the malware was installed by them and wanted to charge $120 to remove it. They are truly deserving of this class action.

AC wrote:

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but did Lenovo install this kind of stuff before it went Chinese?

Lenovo have always been Chinese, IBM sold them it's PC business, and they certainly didn't do this sort of thing.

[Amorous Cowherder]

Re: Only what they deserve

That was the final kick in the teeth, "(* fingers crossed behind back *) No Madam we didn't install anything nasty on your box but we can remove it for you, for a fee of course!".

Utter scumbags.

[Steven Raith]

Re: Only what they deserve

It's highly likely that first and second line support weren't even aware of the bruhaha at that time, and were following the prescribed script, as per usual. Fixing out of warranty stuff would be chargable, of course - show me any manufacturer who will just give you general tech support on their kit, for stuff that isn't part of their install build (or they don't believe is...) for free, and I'll be amazed.

So support aren't scumbags, but the middle management who thought intercepting https traffic to inject ads in it are.

Steven R

[Tom 13]

Re: No Madam we didn't install anything nasty on your box

Remember, the telephone droids only read the scripts put in front of them, and rarely have any actual technical knowledge for problem solving.

Oh, and the real kick in the teeth on that one is, the only reason they use fleshbags instead of automated systems is that the fleshbags cost less than the automated systems.

[Brian Davies]

Re: Only what they deserve

Thinkpads are not infected, just the Lenovo 'brand' machines.

[Tom 38]

Lenovo are wrong

But has she suffered $10k worth of harm? For seeing some bikinis?

[Joe 18]

Re: Lenovo are wrong

Contacted her customer and said that their site might have been hacked because inappropriate adverts were appearing on the site? The damage to her business reputation might have been significant.

[x 7]

"saw the same block of ads in her web browser – featuring "scantily clad women" "

presumably triggered by advertising cookies on her PC - after all these were supposed to be targeted adverts. So who in her family had previously been using her laptop to view smut?

[kain preacher]

3 easy stop to stop this.

1.) make them send out a windows home premium CD to every on with a separate windows key. Do this for for all past systems up to windows 7 and from now own force them to give you a separate windows premium CD with a key.

2.) make them refund cost of the lenvo lap top

3.) make them pay for the choice of a new laptop for their victims capped at $5000.

[Mr Templedene]

Every website owner

Surely every website owner should have a case against them as well, My website carries no adverts as it's an advert in itself for my business. If levono/superfish are plastering ads all over it, especially if they could be either context related (advertising competitors on MY website) or smutty "I'm not using a company that allows smutty adverts on his website" it will be damaging to my business!

And if someone is running a website like El Reg, that is advert supported, and levono/superfish replace them with their own ads, then it's taking revenue from them as well!

[TheITGuy]

Too bad people don't read.. and the media omits details...

It is shocking how these things can get blown out of proportion... and how users blame everyone but themselves for their own stupidity...

We have some lady who's computer has been used to surf porn... gets smut ads targeted at her rightfully so... then decides to sue Lenovo because some software she AGREED to install is doing what it was meant to do.... had she actually been reading what she was agreeing to she wouldn't have had this problem...

Most viruses end up on peoples computers because they don't pay attention to what they are clicking... ie. if your office phone system doesn't send your voicemails by email... why the heck would you open the zip attachment and run the file inside??? What's next... is it time to sue Microsoft because the default agree button was the same size as the cancel? or because you didn't have to agree a second time to having actually read what your agreeing to?

Not saying Superfish is good... Just pointing out it's your own damn fault if you weren't smart enough to read!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to stop this sort of thing

Its not just Lenovo, nearly every single manufacturer shipping laptops with "rebloatery" partitions that restore the laptop to slow like-new condition wiping out all the data as they go complete with vulns dating back to the day the partition was written should be forced by law to fix this.

I know exactly why they do it, pure greed.

They can't justify making a £26 profit on a machine so sell at a loss and make the money back on ads.

Its even worse when some machines won't even let you clone the HDD which you are legally allowed to do, the restore sometimes fails if the drive isn't the exact same size and manufacturer even down to the firmware version.

If they want to do this would it not be simpler to offer an upgrade kit which clones the drive THEN deletes the Windows install on the old drive but leaves the user data intact.