Why Are Y Combinator And Andreessen Horowitz Backing A Drive-By Toolbar/Adware Installer?

from the reddit,-Airbnb,-Dropbox,-Groupon,-Instagram,-Skype-and...-InstallMonetizer?? dept

Raise your hand if you love bundled toolbars and other assorted suspiciously-acting software installing itself on your computer when all you thought you were installing was a Java update or some other unrelated program. No, go ahead. Yeah... that's none of us.

Bundled toolbars and the like are considered "necessary evils" by those hoping to monetize something they're otherwise offering for free. But to the average computer user, they're annoying, devious bits of software that do fun things like hijack your default search or plant a row of links you'll never use in your Favorites bar. And that's when they're not doing more nefarious things, like delivering all sorts of browsing data to who knows where or, worse yet, running an unasked for "virus scan" and holding your computer hostage until you purchase the software from some shady third party.

Knowing the preceding to be an actual, provable fact, why on earth would respected entities in the tech community like Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz get in bed with a startup whose sole purpose is to "monetize" installs by bundling unwanted adware, toolbars or worse with its clients' programs?

That's the question Long Zheng at I Started Something is asking.

Many people in the technology startup community have very high regards for Paul Graham and Y Combinator, the exclusive seed accelerator program in Silicon Valley which has under its belt acclaimed successes like reddit, Airbnb and Dropbox. There’s equal standing for Andreessen Horowitz, a private equity investment company with notable alumni such as Groupon, Instagram and Skype.

Now those people and companies have put their most valuable support – money, experience and brand – behind “InstallMonetizer“, a company that describes itself as a “windows based software monetization platform”. Very carefully selected words.

Now, there's nothing wrong with being a "software monetizer" who bundles products for clients with the software of others, other than the fact that your business method is highly unpopular with most computer users and that your financial success is usually dependent on the ignorance of those on the receiving end of opt-in/opt-out dialog boxes. In and of itself, not illegal or evil... just unwelcome.

No, the problems begin when your privacy policy can't even agree with itself as to whether InstallMonetizer is providing personal information to its clients, something Rafael Rivera discovered when reading through the company's typo-laden fine print:

Consumers Receiving Product Recommendations- We review the consumer’s pc for existing software. This is done to provide the consumer an advertiser software which they currently do not have installed on their computer. This information is not stored in order to maintain consumer’s privacy. We gather personally identifiable and may include information regarding your geo-location, ip address, operating system, language setting and information regarding whether recommended advertiser software has been accepted, downloaded, installed and any reason for failure installing. None of his information is personally identifiable.

But that statement seems to be false, on top of being nearly unintelligible. As Long Zheng points out, its own website clearly states (with pictures!) that it gathers IP and MAC addresses and makes them available to its clients.


So, all this information is/isn't gathered and is/isn't turned over to InstallMonetizer's clients, so there's nothing to worry about because the company takes rigorous security precautions...

We endeavor to take security measures to guard against unauthorized access to the systems where we store your data. This includes internal reviews of our data collection, storage, and processing practices and security measures and physical security measures.

and sends your unencrypted login data to you via a third party mailer...



Long doesn't question the fact that some software developers will find services like this a useful way to generate some additional income. What he does want to know is why respected entities like Y Combinator would back a startup that actively makes computing worse.

I’m not going to delve into the technical aspects of crapware – its effects on system performance, reliability and satisfaction are pretty well documented. The fact that there is a thriving ecosystem of “crapware, adware, spyware” removers is enough evidence it’s a significant issue.

Perhaps more importantly, I strongly believe crapware installers among other foul practices have eroded the trust of the Windows app ecosystem as a whole.

What used to be a fairly standard flow of app discovery has turned into a minefield of misleading download links on websites, defaulted checkboxes or sneaky install crapware buttons in position of “next” in wizards and browser homepage overrides. And it just takes one wrong click to have irreversible consequences.

Last but not least, disregarding the moral factor of this investment, I’m puzzled why such visionary investors would invest in a process that is slowly being phased out by changing industry practices...

I admit every person and company has the right to set their own moral compass, but it’s genuinely disappointing to see such respected and influential people and companies put their weight behind a practice that has undermined and continues to undermine the credibility of the Windows app ecosystem.

It's a good question. While no one expects VCs and accelerators to solely back conscionable startups, no one really expects those with stellar reputations to back a startup whose product is indistinguishable from hundreds of other shady installer packages standing between the end user and the product he or she actually wants.

InstallMonetizer claims it turns down 95% of applicants in order to keep it free of adware, spyware and malware, but just because the Yahoo! toolbar (to use one example) is none of the above doesn't make its uninvited presence in a string of opt-in/opt-out dialog boxes any more welcome. There are many ways to earn income while still providing a free product and there will be even more ways in the future. What's going on here isn't innovative. It's just another, slightly shinier version of something people are already sick of, and its questionable privacy policy quite possibly makes it no better (or different) than the others that have preceded it. 

Filed Under: adware, misleading, monetization, toolbar
Companies: andreessen horowitz, ycombinator

Patent Hawk's Wings Clipped; Editable Toolbar Patent Is Invalid

from the too-bad,-so-sad dept

A couple of years ago, we wrote about a patent infringement lawsuit filed by a guy named Gary Odom, who is better known in the patent blogging world as the Patent Hawk. He's an... aggressive supporter of all things patent, and has a way with words, often shown off in his inimical insult-to-backuppable-statement ratio, seen at times here in the Techdirt comments. The "patent" (7,363,592) was on editable toolbars in software. What's amusing in our post on the initial lawsuit is to see the usual crew of defenders insisting that the patent likely is valid, in part because of Odom's job as a prior art searcher, suggesting he would clearly know of any prior art that would invalidate the patent. We were also told that Odom's "expertise" on the subject was something we should learn from. A few months later, Odom used the same patent to sue 28 more companies.

Odom also talked a big, big game about the lawsuits and the patents (referring to himself in the third person!) on his own website:

Odom thoroughly searched the prior art before asserting his tool groups patent. He's filed accelerated examination (AE) continuations. AE requires a fairly exhaustive search of the prior art, and identification of how the claims are supported in the specification, as well as mapping the closest prior art to the claims.

Odom filed '592 in late 2000. Seven years later active tool groups burst into the commercial marketplace, introduced, and actively promoted, by Microsoft. It has spread like wildfire as a new user interface standard. Belated infringement coupled with commercial success is itself an indicator of non-obviousness.

As an aside, punters, who have commented that Odom's claims are Bilskied out, don't know what they are talking about. The CAFC has been concerned about overreaching business method patents. Bilski required, for software patents, that claims transform the subject matter, and have tangibility (according to one interpretation), i.e., representational of non-computer existence. Odom's tool groups are like containers in a toolbox, and his claims alter the condition of those groups.

The case took a weird turn when Microsoft first countersued Odom, pointing out that he had been working under contract for Microsoft at the time he filed the patents, and his contract stipulated that he wouldn't file for certain patents or file patent infringement claims against Microsoft.

Odom also made fun of reporter Joe Mullin's reporting on that twist in the case, but then quickly deleted his post, though it was preserved elsewhere. The response showed the level of cocky attitude we've come to expect from Odom, in which he insisted that "there is drama afoot in this case," and that "time will tell whose hands are clean."

I don't know exactly whose hands are clean, but I am pretty sure that Odom has now lost this case badly. We had seen the news a few months back about how first Odom's attempt to file the case in East Texas (despite living in Oregon and Microsoft being in nearby Seattle) failed as the case was shifted to Oregon. Then we saw how Odom's own lawyer had tried to get out of the case, and Odom tried to prevent him from doing so. Later, after the lawyer was allowed off the case, and Odom couldn't find anyone else willing to take the case (odd if the case were really strong), he finally decided to drop it. Of course, Microsoft had already filed the counterclaims, and the court went forward on that... and didn't just rule that Microsoft didn't infringe, it invalidated Odom's patent as (oops!) having prior art that made the claims obvious to those skilled in the art. In fact, the court seemed to find the "obviousness" of the patent... well... quite obvious:

However, the court held that the asserted claims presented “one of the clearest” cases of obviousness that had come before it because Odom had simply “cob-bled together various pieces of what was already out there in a manner . . . that would have been obvious to anyone skilled in the art at the time of the invention.”

Odom appealed, challenging the claim construction, the question of whether or not Microsoft infringed and about the invalidity of his own patent. He also claimed that the district court was "biased" against him. The Federal Circuit appeals court (CAFC) has now ruled and once again rejected the claims of our friendly Patent Hawk (pdf, found via Mike Wokasch).

The court goes through a discussion on the obviousness of editable toolbars... which should drive any real programmer nuts. The fact that lawyers and a court had to waste all this time debating the patentability of editable toolbars is just crazy. The key point, however, is that there was a previous patent that more or less beat Odom to the punch on pretty much everything in his patent. That's extremely embarrassing for Odom, since his entire job is supposedly his ability to find prior art for people. If he can't do it for himself...

Those same concepts are claimed in the ’592 patent except that the groups of tools are on a single toolbar. That is an insignificant advance over Kavalam. KSR Int’l Co., 550 U.S. at 417 (“If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation [of a prior art work], § 103 likely bars its patentability.”). Kavalam explains that although its invention has been described in the context of a web browser, employing collections of buttons and toolbars that are relevant to that application, a person of skill in the art would appreciate that the inven-tion can be adopted to other applications where a different arrangement or combination of tools may be desired. Kavalam, col.15, l.63–col.16, l.12. The district court thus did not err in determining that the manner in which ’592 patent divides up toolbars into groups and claims manipu-lation of tool groups would have been a common sense variation of Kavalam for a person of skill in the art. Likewise, it would have also been a trivial change for a person of skill in the art designing such alterable tool groups to add an indicator that could indicate any altered condition of the tool group.

The court then, piece by piece, dismantles the claim of "judicial bias" that Odom made, as it finds no such evidence. All of this couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, really.

Filed Under: gary odom, patent, patent hawk, toolbar

28 More Companies Sued Over Grouped Toolbars Patent

from the patent-hawk-greed dept

You may recall last summer that we wrote about Gary Odom (as known as Patent Hawk) who has been known to stop by our site here to throw around an insult or two (nice guy!). It seems that Odom, who had previously worked with Microsoft, doing prior art research for its patents, had decided to turn around and sue Microsoft for having software toolbars that take different toolbar items and group the items together (stunning innovation, there). It later turned out that he may have violated his contracts in suing Microsoft.

That case is still ongoing, but why stop with just suing one company? Especially when that company is big and has lots of lawyers. Why not sue 28 other companies over the same patent. Amusingly, when Joe Mullin from IP Law & Business called Odom to comment, Odom refused, saying: "You're a hack job, man." Always a pleasant guy, that Odom. However, Odom had no problem discussing at length the lawsuit on his own blog -- amusingly referring to himself in the third person, and (this is great) offering his own "expert" opinion on the validity of his own patents and lawsuit. Very credible.

While it seems quite likely that the patent in question (Tool group manipulations) is invalid following the Bilski decision, Odom brushes aside those concerns saying anyone suggesting that "[doesn't] know what they are talking about" and then offers his own interpretation of the Bilski ruling, which doesn't seem to mesh with what the ruling actually said, or how the courts and the USPTO have been interpreting the ruling. Still, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's right, and that the patent is still valid. So what does he want?

Well, from his post, it appears he wants these companies to shut up and hand over 25% of their profits, based on a rule of thumb from half a century ago. Think about this back here in reality for a second. He's asking for 25% of all profits on nearly 30 different software products, because those software products happen to have toolbar menus where the buttons are in editable groups. This is an obvious minor feature on a minor feature of a minor feature. And he thinks it's fair and equitable to get 25% of all profits. Update: In the comments, Odom clarifies, saying that he does't want 25% of the profits (though, his original post is woefully unclear on this subject), ut 25% of the value of the feature. Considering the additional value to these products of having groupable toolbars seems minimal, I'm guessing about $5 towards Odom should about cover it. Odom, in the way only he can, also leaves another insult for us. Nice guy!

People like to point out these days that pretty much any high tech product in some way or another violates tens to hundreds of patents, thanks to the happy rapidity with which the USPTO approves any old obvious idea. Imagine if each one got to demand 25% of all profits as a license? It doesn't take a math major to recognize how the assertion makes no sense.

Filed Under: gary odom, patents, software, toolbar
Companies: microsoft

Microsoft Sued Over User Editable Toolbar Patent

from the don't-bother-creating-software,-you'll-just-get-sued dept

If you follow the patent world, you know of Gary Odom, who is known as The Patent Hawk. To say he's a big supporter of the patent system would be something of an understatement. He's been known to comment here on occasion, employing the style seen all-too-often among patent system apologists commenting on Techdirt posts: insult repeatedly and broadly, offer no actual points, refuse to actually counter anything we say, provide absolutely no evidence and (for good measure) insult again. However, as reader Jon has pointed out to us, Odom recently received a new patent (he's got a bunch) on tool group manipulations and he's now suing Microsoft for the way its toolbars work in Office 2007.

I won't comment on the patent itself and whether or not its obvious -- read the claims and judge for yourself. However, I will question just what sort of patent system we've created when simply putting a toolbar in your software that can be changed and manipulated by the end user can get you sued for patent infringement. With patents and lawsuits like this flying by every day, it almost seems as if software companies are better off not doing any actual innovation, because it's only likely to get them sued. Have an idea on how to make a toolbar function better? Don't bother unless you're willing to pay a tax. At some point you have just sit back and look at the system as a whole and wonder how we got from the vision of Thomas Jefferson to here.

Filed Under: editable toolbar, gary odom, microsoft office, patent hawk, patents, toolbar
Companies: microsoft