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Judge Rebuffs Legal Challenge to Pop-Up Ads
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By Peter Kaplan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge has rejected a legal challenge by truck and trailer rental company U-Haul to pop-up Internet advertisements, in a ruling that could embolden providers of the ads.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, in a ruling handed down on Friday, dismissed U-Haul's lawsuit, which sought to ban software by Internet advertising company WhenU that launched rival pop-up ads when customers access U-Haul's Web site.
Lee said the ads don't violate the law because WhenU's software didn't copy or use U-Haul's trademark or copyright material, and because computer users themselves had chosen to download the pop-up software.
"While at first blush this detour in the user's Web search seems like a siphon-off of a business opportunity, the fact is that the computer user consented to this detour when the user downloaded WhenU's computer software from the Internet," Lee said.