Blog Writer Sues Lenovo in Federal Court Over Its Installation of Superfish Software

Blog writer Jessica Bennett alleges violations of California privacy laws and of federal wiretap statutes, in a complaint against Lenovo for installing Superfish software on a Lenovo Yoga 2 convertible laptop she bought late in 2014. The complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, seeks class-action status and unspecified statutory damages against Lenovo and Superfish, which also was named as a defendant. Lenovo shipped products that included Superfish software between September and December, but the software has been disabled since January, the company said in a statement last week (see 1502190046). Superfish lets consumers view more advertisements, but some privacy advocates consider the software a security threat. Soon after buying the Lenovo product, Bennett "was writing a blog post for a client when she noticed spam advertisements involving scantily clad women appearing on her client’s website," the complaint said. "A few hours later, Plaintiff was doing research for a different client when she saw the same block of advertisements intruding on a different, very well known site. It was then that Plaintiff knew that her computer was infected with Spyware." Lenovo didn't comment.