Ebates Sued for Trespass to Chattels–Sotelo v. Ebates

By Eric Goldman

Sotelo v. Ebates Shopping.com, No. 06C-2531 (N.D. Ill. complaint filed May 5, 2006)

The Collins Law Firm has filed a third class action lawsuit over adware, this time targeting Ebate’s Moe Money Maker client software. The complaint alleges that Moe Money Maker interferes with other client-side software and that Ebates misrepresents the nature of Moe Money Maker in its marketing. Similar to the other complaints from the Collins Law Firm, this complaint alleges the following causes of action:

1) Computer Fraud & Abuse Act

2) Electronic Communications Privacy Act

3) Trespass to Chattels under common law

4) Illinois Consumer Fraud Act

5) Negligence

6) Computer Tampering

7) Invasion of Privacy under common law

8) Cal. B&P 17200 and Civ. Code 1021.5

The Chicago Tribune article on this lawsuit and Collins generally.

A status report on the other adware-related civil litigation that I know about:

* Sotelo v. DirectRevenue. Settled in March (Suzi’s report on the settlement). It appears that settlement freed up Sotelo’s time to become lead plaintiff again. I’ve recommended to David Fish that Sotelo should buy some really good anti-spyware software.

* Simios v. 180solutions. Case is in discovery.

* Michaeli v. eXact Advertising. Motion to dismiss filed Dec. 12, 2005 and still pending.

* Consumer Advocates Rights Enforcement Society v. 180solutions (a/k/a Battalgia v. DirectRevenue), No. 2:05-cv-02547-LKK-PAN (E.D. Cal). According to PACER, the last reported action was a motion to dismiss filed April 24 (principally on procedural grounds).

* Kerrins v. Intermix Media. The case appears to be proceeding. A trial date has been set for January 2007, but the parties could settle before that.

If you are aware of others that I missed, I’d love to hear about it.