November 19, 2004

Watch a video of Spyware infecting a system

Infecting computers with silent and or "trickery based" permission
systems is sometimes hard to explain to folks. Ben Edelman has posted a video of these actions on his site.

His video documents the following firms who produce this software which was silently installed on a Windows XP system:

"180solutions, BlazeFind, BookedSpace, CashBack by BargainBuddy, ClickSpring, CoolWebSearch, DyFuca, Hoost, IBIS Toolbar, ISTbar, Power Scan, SideFind, TIB Browser, WebRebates (a TopMoxie distributor), WinAD, and WindUpdates. (All programs are as detected by Ad-Aware.)"

I decided to take a look at the 180solutions privacy page in an effort to determine who is telling the truth and who is either lying and or complicit in this morally and ethically repugnant behavior.

You be the judge from their privacy page copy:
"Our programs are only downloaded with user consent and opt-in."

"We do not display non-permission-based advertising such as banner ads or pop-ups. All of the sponsor websites served by 180solutions are easily closable browser windows clearly identified as “Brought to you by the Zango Search Assistant” or “Brought to you by the 180search Assistant.”

"All 180solutions’ third-party distributors are required to clearly label that our programs are bundled with their products and to provide consumers with the option to agree to the licensing agreement before they install it. We police distributors to ensure our disclosure rules are adhered to and we
prohibit “drive-by” or “silent” installations. Our code of conduct requires that the user is fully aware of and agrees to our End User License Agreement (EULA). "


Take special note of the 2 graphic images at the very bottom of the page and arrive at your own conclusions. Ben Edelman has also written about the cookie-stuffing actions of 180solutions,which effectively steals commissions from Webmasters.


Posted by Steve_S at November 19, 2004 11:10 AM