In Vinesauce! Bonzi Buddy Saying Expand Dong Or Xpand Dong?! was ordered to pay $75,000 in fees, among other aspects, for violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 with BonziBuddy. On 18 February 2004, the Federal Trade Commission released a statement indicating that Bonzi Software, Inc. In the settlement, Bonzi agreed to modify their ads so that they looked less like Windows dialog boxes and more like advertisements. Originally brought against Bonzi Software on 4 December 2002, the suit accused Bonzi of using its banner advertisements to deceptively imitate Windows computer alerts, alerting the user that their IP address is being broadcast. reported the settlement of a class action suit on. Spyware Guide's entry on the program also states that it is adware.

Trend Micro and Symantec have both classified the software as adware. The Spyware Removal Database at Safer Networking (makers of Spybot – Search & Destroy) states 'BonziBuddy is an Internet Explorer toolbar that may change your web browser settings, change your home page, and launch pop-up advertisements while tracking your web browsing habits.' The activities the program is said to engage in include constantly resetting the user's web browser homepage to without the user's permission, prompting and tracking various information about the user, and serving advertisements. In 2002 an article in Consumer Reports Web Watch labelled BonziBuddy as spyware, stating that it contains a backdoor trojan in that it collects information from users. מיקי מאוס Ī number of sources identify BonziBuddy as spyware, a claim the company disputes. Another article found in 2006 on the BusinessWeek website described BonziBuddy as 'the unbelievably annoying spyware trojan horse'. One of the last newspapers to write about BonziBuddy while it was still in distribution described it as spyware and a 'scourge of the Internet'.

One reader was quoted as criticizing the program because it 'kept popping up and obscuring things you needed to see'. In April 2007, PC World readers voted BonziBuddy the 6th on a list named: 'The 20 Most Annoying Tech Products'.

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