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Instead of going after every "botmaster", lets unite as geeks and nerds for justice and take down the enablers of these cybercrimes. Starting with www.180solutions.com

I thought this was a pretty amusing article:

Search Marketing Company 180solutions Ranks Seventh On the 2005 Inc. 500 (press release on 180solutions.com web site)

Either Inc. didn't do their research on companies in their top 10, or they truly don't care how the money is made, only that it is made.

Hi I think this text shed some lights: http://blog.180solutions.com/PermaLink,guid,5795b8 5d-feea-4656-93e1-d788a01f760a.aspx Poor people @180solutions that suddenly found their spy-ware being detected by Zone-lab's Zonealarm. Zonealarm is obviously a great piece of software. So when 180Solutions became aware of this, they saw their business-model go the way of the dinosaurs.

180 is suing ZoneLabs for a very specific and narrow statement as far as I can tell. ZoneLabs says 180 is monitoring key and mouse info, 180 says it is not.
The analysis linked from TFA explains that he found evidence of setting a windows hook. The question is, does Zango use that hook to collect mouse and key info, even for a short time, or are they using the hook for other purposes? What would those purposes be?

A good prosecutor might be able to bring it off. The legal definition of a punishable conspiracy is generally that at least two people knowingly cooperate to commit a crime, while in addition at least one of them does some illegal act to commit the crime.

180Solutions is already being sued in a class action. From the complaint: "180Solutions pays its distributors, who are its agents, money each time they infect a computer with 180Solutions spyware". Recruitment of agents and payment can be sufficient to establish a conspiracy, especially if there's a history of illegal acts by recruited agents. Read more of that filing to see how the plaintiff describes how 180Solutions not only tolerates, but pays, agents who use illegal means to force the install of 180Solutions software.

Since this lawsuit was filed, 180Solutions claims to be mending its ways. However, they're still allowing their existing affiliates to distribute the old, spyware-stuffed version of their application unti the end of 2005, so they're not too serious about it.

In any case, ceasing criminal activity is not a defense to previous crimes.

I wonder if all employees have to use the company software. :-)

Also from their website:

Another differentiating factor between 180solutions and its competitors is that 180solutions is committed to only showing an average of 2-3 ads per day per user. We have also made the uninstall process easy for those who choose not to use 180solutions' products.

I wonder if the 2-3 ads per day is total or per user installation. Also, many programs that come with spyway/adware won't run if they can't find said spyware/adware. Consequentially people reinstall the program again getting back to where they started.

More info about the split is on their site

http://www.180solutions.com/