Catfight in the spyware corral

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computer users' behavior and delivers ads to the desktop, long had a black mark on its back among its spyware-removal tools, and the group disagreed about its membership to Coast.

Among other practices, 180Solutions uses vulnerabilities in ActiveX to automatically install its software on people's PCs without their express permission, according to security experts, a method that rival WhenU recently said it would no longer use. In recent months, Google also said it cut off 180Solutions from its AdSense advertising network after finding that the company was not in compliance with the service's terms and conditions.

"There's a strong incentive for adware publishers to want to be involved in an organization like Coast because it separates them from all the bad spyware companies out there."

--Rick Carlson, president, Aluria Software

Coast recently worked with 180Solutions to review its software and recommend changes, which 180Solutions instituted in a new version of its software. The company was given 90 days to replace all of its outstanding software with the new version. Meanwhile, 180Solutions announced its membership with Coast.

"There's a strong incentive for adware publishers to want to be involved in an organization like Coast because it separates them from all the bad spyware companies out there," said Rick Carlson, president of Aluria Software, which just released the 4.0 version of its spyware removal tool. "But we can't give these guys membership and not push a standard."

Webroot's Stiennon went further to say that the certification process was a conflict of interest.

"Webroot's goal is...diametrically opposed to companies that want to install software on your computer that uses your computer's resources and sometimes have sloppy or damaging practices all in the purpose of serving up ads, which they get paid for and you don't," Stiennon said.

[Not Bugged]

The thieves have taken over the house

I call them thieves because they steal (specifically use without permission) computer resources (disk space, computer memory, computer processing power) from their victims. Even if they installed using a well known and expected mechanism instead of a vulnerability they'd still be thieves if they were installing without the victims explicit permission.

COAST decided to invite the thieves to participate and have lost their organization because the thieves have gained control. It just drives home the point that you can't trust thieves.

Excuse me but...

Excuse me but when a company installs software on your computer secretly so that they can push ads to your (that you not no money from, just a waste of disk space, memory and other resources) and so they can track what you do on the net what the hell are you supposed to call this? It is spyware otherwise they would have asked you to install it, you would get a little money kick back from installing it, you would be able to uninstall it without having to jump through flaming hoops from hell and they would track every move you made on the net.

This is all bulls*hit and all involved with approving such cr*p knows it.

Robert