Morpheus Hijacks Browsers For Affiliate Links

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 19, 2002 @05:36PM from the oh-no-this-can't-be-true dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "According to this news.com article, morpheus (aka streamcast) has begun silently installing a browser plugin on its users' machines that basically hijacks the web browser even when not running Morpheus. An afflicted browser will sense if a user is going to visit a shopping site like Yahoo! or Amazon, and secretly send them to a different site instead and then redirect them from this site to the user's intended destination. The user will not be aware that this is happening... however the site doing the redirecting will benefit because they are set up as an affiliate partner and will get a commission on the backs of the user. On a horrible scale of 1 - 10 for sleazy business practices, I rate this a 9. Comments?"

2 of 489 comments (clear)

Re:And once again... by wadetemp · 2002-03-19 18:26 · Score: 1, Troll

Of course, it's reason 1002 why you shouldn't use Windows, because all spyware targets it. And when Linux becomes a more common operating system than Windows (uh, yeah), it will be reason 1003 not to use Linux.
Re:Dear Watson . . . by toby · 2002-03-19 22:38 · Score: 1, Troll

No, a 10 is when businesses murder to protect their profits. As Shell has in Nigeria; as American oil interests are currently doing in Afghanistan, and the list goes on. (Recommended reading: John Pilger's Hidden Agendas.)

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you had me at #!