Pop-Up Ads Can Continue to Pop Up

The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has granted a motion for summary judgment in favour of WhenU.com Inc, a distributor of free advertising software, against U-Haul International.   U-Haul brought suit against WhenU on a number of different fronts including trade-mark and copyright violations alleged to result from pop-up ads for competing movers, generated by the WhenU software.   The ads appeared to be superimposed on U-Haul's web pages. In granting summary judgment, the court accepted WhenU's argument that its pop-up ad sales and delivery tactics were legal, since consumers agree to receive the ads upon downloading and installing the WhenU software.   In addition, the court agreed with WhenU's contention that consumers are masters of their own desktops.   In writing the opinion of the court, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee noted that the pop-up ads opened in a WhenU-branded window that was separate and distinct from U-Haul's window and that the advertisements did not use, alter or interfere with U-Haul's trade-marks or copyrights. The case is an important one for online advertising.   If the reasoning of the decision (see U-Haul International v WhenU.com, US Dist., LEXIS 15710) is adopted widely, a potential legal obstacle for online advertising companies will have been removed. For further news items on this story, visit: http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5072663.html; and Summary by: Colin Adams