The Tangled Web Of Yahoo's Adware Partners

from the this-again? dept

Thu, Apr 13th 2006 5:03pm — Mike Masnick

This isn't the first time the issue has been brought up, but we keep seeing stories concerning Yahoo's relationship to adware vendors. In the past, most of the associations have been with Claria, where Yahoo has been mostly (though not entirely) open about the relationship. However, now, people are pointing out that recently sued adware firm Direct Revenue gets an awful lot of revenue from Yahoo. Yahoo responds by noting that they had no direct relationship with Direct Revenue at all -- which demonstrates just how convoluted these deals are. There are always some sort of middlemen involved, who broker the deals between the ad network and the adware, allowing the ad network (and the advertisers) to claim ignorance. Of course, the real question is whether it's legitimate ignorance, or if it's a "don't ask, don't tell" sort of situation, where they purposely go out of their way to not find out what's going on. From a PR standpoint, it still looks bad, and gives you the sense that a company like Yahoo should be doing more to understand where its ads really are appearing.

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14 Comments

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j4kk, 13 Apr 2006 @ 6:48pm

Toolbars
Any website that tries to install freaking toolbars on your broswer like Yahoo does is a read flag for Adware. I don't trust 'em.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2006 @ 6:51pm

looks bad from a consumers standpoint as well,
legitimate ignorance and dont ask dont tell are essentially the same thing.
usually anyone that buys advertising needs/ wants to know when and where it will take place and yahoo is no exception.
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Kevin Dill, 13 Apr 2006 @ 7:12pm

Hypocritical Business Practices?
Rubbing your back with one hand and reaching in your pocket with another. These large search engines may be on a runaway corporate greed train. Economics 101, as corporations expand, morality wanes.
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nothing is ever free, 13 Apr 2006 @ 7:13pm

somebody is going told you so
and people are just now noticing
have you ever tried installing yahoo?
the hoops you have to jump through to do it and how many times when you install something else do you get asked to install yahoo toolbar ? I always do custom installs so I know when yahoo is trying to give me their toolbar with something else that I want
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Mr.Woo, 13 Apr 2006 @ 7:41pm

Toolbars
I hate toolbars. I shake my fist at them. Everytime I go to fix one of my mom's friend's computer they always have those stupid toolbars on them, and they have a crap load of adware too.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2006 @ 9:01pm

yahoo is burning their own bridge the way they treat their users.
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Chris Edmiaston, 13 Apr 2006 @ 9:46pm

Yahoo!
Yahoo and all of their other crime infested partners can kiss my a@#, I'm sticking with Google!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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- david, 2 May 2006 @ 8:46pm
  
  Re: Yahoo!
  u r so worry , it is just a end users problem not the isp, get u r information right before deciding
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sam, 13 Apr 2006 @ 9:57pm

Hey, Google adopts same practices as Yahoo. Dont tell me you've never come accross an installation that wants to install Google toolbar.
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- Mike R, 13 Apr 2006 @ 10:18pm
  
  Re:
  yeah, Sam, I've noticed them too, but go to google.com and look at how many ads you see. Then go to yahoo.com, but, hang on for a wild ride of ads, where 3/4 the links aren't actually useful but rather some method of getting to your pocket.
  
  Google toolbar, I trust, I simply find useless, what with Firefox's integration of google search. Yahoo's is both useless AND blatantly spyware. (Or does Google's track and report usage as well?)
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  - Coyote, 14 Apr 2006 @ 12:39am
    
    Google Toolbar
    The Gogle Toolbar does submit the URL of every page you visit if you turn the advanced features on. It has to in order to query the pagerank rating. This is really no different than doing a google search: Google tracks in aggregate what you search for, what results are returned, and (if you use their cache) what sites you actually visit.
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No more Brains, 13 Apr 2006 @ 10:17pm

Spy On us some more jerks
I think we need to start our own internet. Let this one be free of our government data mining us, and spying on us. Today, it costs us an arm and a leg, so we can have our computers messed up with spyware, trojans and the like. To make it all worse, is that they want to sell us something to give us huge private parts. The internet is no longer free... Our gov.. and bad business's like yahoo and Microsoft have teamed up.. I think we need to fight back and create a real world free internet- and let the doctrine read, any gov that tries to censor it or use it to spy on us.. can and should be taken out... Freedom always win... LUKE YOU HAVE THE FORCE...
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Shadowjack, 14 Apr 2006 @ 4:49am

The difference is...
The difference between Google and Yahoo! is that I don't have cookies and/or adware junk from Adware firms in my system when I use Google while I do with Yahoo! Since severing my relationship with Yahoo! and never going to their sites or affiliated sites, hey, hey! No adware crap here.
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yahoo sucks ass, 18 Aug 2007 @ 11:45am

yahoo sucks
Yahoo has really gone downhill. I rememebr when PEOPLE used to go into their chatrooms, now its just tons of pornbots spamming the room. You cant find anyone to talk to in any of them.

I find it funny how they got rid of user rooms to " protect the children" Then they go on a full bore support for porn bots to hijack their rooms and harass legitimate users. Eventually their foolish way of practicing business will lead to their downfall. They have ZERO customer support. When you email them with a question you get a automated message about how they care, etc, etc.

I once had an account hijacked, and they offerend no support whatsoever. They kept asking me for a stupid codeword, without understanding, the asshole who jacked my account changed it. IDIOTS.

Id love to see the CEO of yahoo dragged out in handcuffs for his criminal misdeeds with yahoo messenger, and the Artificially Unintelligent cesspool their chatrooms have become.

Yahoo messenger also dumps adware onto your harddrive. Dont believe me? Run messenger, and then check your local settings, notice alot of ads. Myspace messenger does the same thing. Im sick of companies using these dirty tricks, and even installing software WITHOUT your consent on your hard drive. Fuck these companies right in their collective asses.
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