Slashdot Mirror
Who Invests in Spyware Companies?
NW writes "Ben Edelman just published a list of major investors in spyware companies totaling over $139 million in venture capital." Slashdot has not verified Edelman's information, and please note that harassing the receptionist at these places is unlikely to cause any change in their investment policies.
As to "Slashdot has not verified...": I've cited sources for each report of funding of each specified spyware company. See the links within my page -- just click on the "$40 million" and similar hyperlinks to see the source (news coverage, press release) reporting that funding.
You didn't understand the table. The first column is NOT the investor, but the spyware company. The SECOND column is the investment firm.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Remeber that "investors" are the owners. They can hide behind corporations, but the owners are responsible for the actions of their companies, even if they're not legally accountable.
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make install -not war
I have on hand lots of information about advertisers supporting these companies. One complication is that some of the advertisers are unintentional participants -- e.g. the ads were placed by affiliates, apparently often acting without authorization by the underlying merchants. Often, the link format makes it possible to tell the difference between an affiliate's ad and an "official" ad.
As to Gator advertisers: See Gator advertisers as of 2003 and Gator advertisers based on data from Claria's S-1 disclosure.
In any event, I'll be updating my site with more advertiser information in the future. It's at the top of my list of priorities.
Personally, I wouldn't trust Bill Gates, but your parents might. He thinks it's spyware.
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I would love a good source to prove that Weatherbug is spyware. My parents use it (the full, paid for version). I had heard that it was spyware and told them so, but my brother in law, who is an executive in the IT department of a major corporation, told them it wasn't. Guess who they believed? -Ken
I can't prove it's spyware, but I can prove they do things against your wishes, see my reply to the grandparent here for more info. I'd highly recommend they get rid of it, there are alternatives that aren't evil.If it really was not spyware, they would not feel a need to spam message boards to say it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Yes, they do. A few months ago, I was on vacation with my wife's family. And like a real loser, I took my laptop (What can I say, I'm a consultant, I feel naked without my laptop). My wife's stepbrother borrowed it one evening and loaded AIM on it so he could chat with his friends. After the vacation, I removed AIM, but each time I turned the laptop on, I received registry errors due to a failure in the Weatherbug startup process.
It took me quite a while to figure out how to fix the registry. I had to search the web for the correct settings.
Note the last word of criteria 1, following the semicolon: "and"
Programs must meet both criteria to be listed. I do not report companies that receive major funding but do not collect sensitive information or install without proper notice and consent. And I do not report companies that collect sensitive information and install without proper notice and consent, but have received no major funding (per publicly-available sources).
I've read and used Ben's research for other projects, especially his domain name data and it's always accurate. No reason to doubt him this time unless you can find definitive contradictions. He is friendly has always responded to email if it's on topic. Nice to see his work get some attention here.
Weatherfox/ForecastFox works pretty well as an extension in Firefox.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
I recently made a video showing spyware installed through security holes.
My records (packet sniffer logs, etc.) do tell me what specific exploits were used, though my public write-up doesn't include all these details. In any event, the video is certainly sufficient to validate the "hefty claim" of software installed through security holes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Which leads to the following results after playing around with the EDGAR search:
Spectrum Equity Investors, U.S. Venture Partners, Greylock, Crosslink Capital, Garage Technology Ventures, Rosewood Stone Group???? , Investor AB, Technology Crossover Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Technology Investment Capital Corp
What the guy has done with his website is interesting. Though maybe this should be put into a wiki, then maybe people can sift through all this information and post back there...