Internet Data analysis agency comscore encounters privacy tort lawsuit

Sina Science and technology news Beijing time August 24 morning, the United States Internet Data analysis agency comscore in a federal court in Chicago in Tuesday suffered a privacy tort lawsuit.　　The plaintiff said ComScore had stolen confidential information from users, including passwords, credit card numbers and social Security numbers. This class action represents two users who have downloaded comscore software. The lawsuit alleges that ComScore's software scans all files on the user's computer and modifies the computer's security settings.　　The lawsuit calls for a ban on multiple acts by ComScore and seeks damages under the U.S. Electronic Communications privacy law. ComScore collects user data for downloading its free software, and users will have the opportunity to receive bonuses after participating in ComScore's project.　　ComScore sells data analysis reports to more than 1800 companies around the world, including Best Buy, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo. The lawsuit states that ComScore's software scans all available files on the user's computer, as well as files from other users on the same network, and sends the information to comscore. "We have evaluated the lawsuit and found that the lawsuit was in fact completely inaccurate," said Andrew Ripsman Andrew Lipsman, a spokesman for ComScore. ComScore will be active in defending itself. "As users engage in more and more activities on the Internet, such as shopping and banking transactions, privacy protection organizations are increasingly concerned about data collection by internet companies," he said.　　Last year, Google street map cars were strongly condemned for incorrectly collecting data from unencrypted WiFi networks.　　ComScore has prompted on its premieropinion.com website that the company's software will monitor all Internet activities of users, including shopping carts for shopping on the web, forms to fill online, and checking of network accounts. "We will automatically filter confidential personal information such as user ID, password, credit card number, and account number," ComScore's tip showed. We may collect this information inadvertently. If this happens, we will delete the information in the database.　　In a 2008 blog post, comscore Chairman Gian Fegouni Gian Fulgoni said the company would solicit user approval before installing data-collection software, and ComScore would not provide personally identifiable information to clients. Ccomscore's data are widely used in media reports to reflect consumers ' use of Internet services such as social networks. The company's biggest customer is Microsoft. Microsoft's contribution amounted to 11% of ComScore's $175 million trillion revenue last year. Media companies such as News Corp and Thomson Reuters are also customers of comscore. But the lawsuit did notListed ComScore's clients as defendants. According to the indictment, comscore attracts users by advertising on the site. In addition, the company has also promoted its software through a number of unnamed subsidiaries and has entered millions of of users ' computers and networks.　　According to the indictment, ComScore's software integrates free screen savers, games and other applications without giving appropriate notice. When the software is downloaded, the software modifies the firewall settings of the user's computer and obtains full control over any files on the computer.　　And once the software is installed, uninstalling will be very difficult. Jay Edelson, the plaintiff's acting attorney, Jes Edelson that his law firm had been investigating comscore as early as July 2010. (Chu Yue)