Is The Original Spyware Company Finally Dead?

from the a-milestone dept

For nearly a decade, we've followed the changing business of what was originally called Gator. When it first launched, back in 1999, the company was offering an e-wallet product, and even though there were many such things on the market, Gator insisted that it was first. When it turned out that there wasn't much of a market for an e-wallet product, the company quickly morphed its business into popping up ads over existing ads -- which resulted in a whole bunch of lawsuits. It didn't take long before Gator realized that people didn't really want its software popping up ads, so it began tricking users into downloading. As many folks recall, Gator was one of the first real "spyware" companies -- tricking users into downloading a product that watched what they surfed and popped up ads.

As the whole spyware (the companies in the space preferred the adware label) got a bad name, Gator first threatened to sue anyone who called its product spyware, and then eventually decided to shed the baggage of the Gator name and renamed itself Claria. -- insisting that it was now a legitimate advertising firm. Except, the charges of spyware kept flying in Claria's direction. The company tried and failed to go public, and then, once again, insisted that it was getting out of the adware business and moving into "behavioral advertising" -- which, most people realized was just another term for what it had been doing in the past.

Plenty of folks were shocked when rumors started spreading that Microsoft wanted to buy Claria, though, the public backlash to the "leaked" rumor was so harsh that Microsoft very quickly backed away from those plans. So, without being able to IPO or sell itself -- and with a still awful reputation as a spyware provider, the company tried to change once again.

The company insisted (yet again) it was getting out of that old sketchy business, and tried to launch a "portal" that would provide relevant content based on how you surfed. In other words: it was still in the spyware business, just positioning it under a better name. The company did try and fail to sell off its traditional adware business.

After that, honestly, we hadn't heard much of a peep out of the company. Despite launching its portal to great fanfare (we were inundated with PR spam from the company about this great "portal" idea), it didn't seem to get any traction. We apparently missed the news that recently the company (through a somewhat complex transaction) changed its name, yet again, to JellyCloud. Basically, the same exec team started a new company just a few months ago, raising another $11.5 million, and then took over Claria, though carefully hid all connections to its past, claiming to be just another online advertising company.

However, Valleywag is now reporting that the company shut down this weekend (despite having just raised all that money, and not counting all the money it raised in the past). If so, it's a rather quiet end for the company that really did become synonymous with the "spyware" term, and helped create that whole space.

Filed Under: adware, out of business, spyware
Companies: claria, gator, jellycloud

Zango's Latest Trick: Pitching Fake Batman MMORPG To Get People To Download Adware

from the and-so-it-goes dept

We've talked about Zango's continued claims that it's a changed company from the one that paid huge fines for tricking people into downloading its intrusive adware, but somethings never really seem to change. An anonymous reader points us to an ad found on a bunch of legitimate video game sites recently, pitching a new Batman online virtual world game, but if you click through, it turns out that it's just a severely limited demo version of a client-side Batman game from 2001. Despite the ad promising all sorts of things, such as "play online with your friends" the actual download has none of that... but it does include an install of Zango. Chris Boyd, who figured all this out wonders why the sites that ran this ad did so, knowing that it was almost certainly bogus. Zango, of course, will blame a "rogue affiliate" which is what they always do -- but Boyd wonders why they won't actually identify who's responsible.

Filed Under: adware, affiliates, batman, gaming
Companies: zango

Yet Another Company Sues Over Being Called Adware

from the yet-again dept

We've seen a few such cases in the past -- and they usually end with a judge telling the suing company to shove off, but here we have yet another company upset that its being labeled as an adware/spyware provider. In this case, it's a company called 7Search, which is suing McAfee. 7Search is claiming that McAfee's warning about "downloads" from its site having been "credibly" called adware or spyware are false and defamatory because 7Search no longer offers software for download off its site (though it apparently did in the past).

As Eric Goldman notes in the link above, just bringing these types of lawsuits tends to backfire. As we noted above, they rarely, if ever, win, and simply filing the lawsuit draws much more attention to the company -- often including reports from users about why they do think the software in question is adware or spyware. In the meantime, if 7Search no longer offers downloads, then it's not clear what it's upset about either, since it's not like the McAfee warning is going to stop people from downloading its software -- since, apparently, there's no software to download.

Filed Under: adware, defamation, lawsuits, naming, spyware
Companies: 7search, mcafee

Zango May Have Worked Things Out With The FTC, But What About The MPAA?

from the out-of-the-frying-pan,-into-the-fire dept

We've pointed out for years the various questionable activities performed by adware firm Zango (or one of its earlier incarnations). The company has gone through so many changes it's tough to follow, but every time it insists that it has somehow "cleaned up" its act, it doesn't take long for researchers to find evidence to the contrary. For a while, the company was in hot water with the FTC for tricking people into downloading its adware. It eventually settled with the FTC, paying a hefty fine. These days, once again, the company insists that it's reinvented itself to focus on the "casual gaming market."

However, that doesn't appear to be the case. I recently saw a presentation from the company where it didn't mention casual gaming at all, but instead called itself a "publisher" of content -- though it was quite vague and evasive about just what kind of content. Perhaps that's because it doesn't want parties like the MPAA to know. As Ben Edelman had noticed a few months ago -- and now more and more security researchers are finding, Zango's software is being offered up by folks who are promising fully pirated movies.

It makes you wonder if Zango recognizes that dealing with the MPAA may be a lot less pleasant than fighting the FTC. Of course, maybe the MPAA recognizes that when pirated movies come with intrusive adware like Zango, it only gives pirated movies a bad name.

Filed Under: adware, ftc, malware, popup advertising, zango
Companies: mpaa, zango

Zango Tries To Reinvent Itself (Again); Lays Off A Bunch Of Employees

from the like-anyone-trusts-them dept

If you've heard of the company Zango, it's probably for bad reasons. Zango is a company that was created when some separate adware firms merged and took a new name. The company kept insisting that it had reformed and wasn't using surreptitious installs any more -- but every time it said that, it didn't take long to find evidence proving that wrong. This happened time after time after time after time after time. Many of these happened after the FTC got the company to agree to stop these practices.

Well, now the company is trying to reinvent itself yet again -- claiming that it's going to focus on the "casual gaming" market -- and due to this, it's laying off 68 people. One would hope that these layoffs are for the folks responsible for building the malware part of their business. Of course, it was just a few weeks ago that security researcher Ben Edelman was demonstrating more problems with Zango's new business model.

Filed Under: adware, casual gaming, layoffs
Companies: zango

What If Sneaky Adware Died And No One Noticed?

from the well-look-at-that... dept

Eric Goldman has a fascinating post, pointing out that the era of sneaky adware seems to be pretty much over. For quite some time, one of the biggest annoyances online for many users were surreptitiously-installed client side adware programs that would pop up unwanted ads while you did other things. However, it appears that a combination of factors have pretty much wiped them out. Legal rulings found that the surreptitious installs (either with no notice or misleading notices) were fraud. Companies were sued, fined and went out of business. Security firms got better at catching and blocking these programs, and the few remaining firms in the space moved on to other projects (though, some are equally questionable). Either way, most folks probably didn't notice, because they either learned to avoid the sneaky adware or they were already well enough protected from it. Yet, as Goldman points out, pretty much everyone (with the possible exception of Zango) is no longer in the business of tricking people into installing ad-spewing software.

Of course, Goldman points out that no one has let the politicians in on this news yet, as many are still pushing various anti-spyware legislation that probably doesn't matter any more. He also points out that this doesn't mean questionable ad activity isn't still happening -- it's just moved on from sneakily installing an application on your harddrive. That's why Phorm (a former client-side adware maker) is in so much hot water these days. Its behavioral ad targeting solution may not be the same as the surreptitious client side ad spewing software -- but it's still surreptitiously watching your behavior and displaying ads based on it.

Filed Under: adware, spyware, surreptitious installs

British ISPs Hand Over Your Surfing Data To (Former?) Spyware Firm

from the privacy? dept

Earlier this month, we noted that three large UK ISPs had agreed to a questionable deal with a startup named "Phorm." The ISPs would share all of your surfing data with Phorm who would then target advertisements to you based on your surfing patterns. We raised some privacy concerns, and noted that Phorm's claims that it would anonymize the data were laughable, since every "anonymized" data set seems to get quickly de-anonymized. In the comments to that post, one commenter noted that the story was even worse, as Phorm was merely the reincarnation of a spyware firm that had made a rather infamous rootkit. Broadband Reports now has more on that story, noting that the firm has a very shady past. It makes you wonder why these big ISPs would link up with such a company and why more people aren't up in arms about what their ISPs are doing with their data.

Filed Under: adware, clickstream data, isps, spyware, uk
Companies: phorm

Ding Dong, DirectRevenue Is Dead

from the apparently-it's-tough-to-make-money-being-legit dept

DirectRevenue was considered one of the worst adware/spyware firms out there for many years. The company was famous for changing names every time people started to figure out how sleazy the company's marketing techniques were, and then repeatedly claiming it had cleaned up its practice of sneaky installs when the reality was that it kept doing the same thing. Eventually, the company was sued and paid a $1.5 million fine -- significantly less than the $28 million in profits the firm's founders apparently had made (and the $80 million the company had brought in over the years). Either way, now that the lawsuits appear to be done, and the fact that it's pretty difficult to make any money in that business without surreptitious installs, the company is shutting down. I'm sure the founders who walked away with all that money aren't too upset by it, however.

Filed Under: adware, spyware
Companies: directrevenue

Court Rules That Anti-Spyware Companies Can Call Spyware Spyware

from the what's-in-a-name dept

All too often, we've seen cases where security software firms were sued for calling some piece of software "spyware" or "adware." In fact, Microsoft even wanted to make sure that new anti-spyware legislation would make it clear that there's nothing wrong with calling spyware "spyware." However, in the latest ruling on one of these cases (in which Zango sued Kaspersky), the ruling makes it clear we already have such a law on the books. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, noting that security firms have every right to label software as they see fit, citing part of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

We often point to section 230, because it protects service providers from liability for the actions of the service providers' users. However, this is referring to a different part of section 230, which says that no service provider is liable for a good faith attempt to restrict access to something it deems objectionable. The court felt that the security company was a service provider, and that since it believed Zango was objectionable, then it has every right to try to restrict it. The court makes a second very important point. Zango complains that its software is not objectionable, and therefore the security providers cannot block it as objectionable. However, the court points out that the statute clearly says that it's for what the service provider finds objectionable. In other words, the content in question need not be "objectionable" at all -- it only matters what the service provider feels about it. This is a pretty strong endorsement for the idea that security companies absolutely can call software whatever they feel is appropriate.

Filed Under: adware, cda, section 230, spyware
Companies: kaspersky, zango