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.
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
No it lists investors. From what I see it is a bunch of venture capitol companies; companies that provide money to startup companies in exchange for a stake in the profits. It is pretty much the standard business model for a lot of startups. It is a lot easier to get money from venture capitolists than banks. In exchange you give up some (often most) ownership in the product.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
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I wonder who invests in Weatherbug, the notorious spyware company that spams message boards saying "we are not spyware" ? (They have yet to install spyware that says "we do not spam").
For anyone who doubts Weatherbug's evilness, I can relate a concrete example of it. My Mom had been using Weatherbug, and I let her keep it because it seemed fairly harmless. Then one day last month I checked her computer and a box was popped up saying an update to Weatherbug was available, asking if I wanted to install it. I clicked no, it installed anyway.It took me a while to get rid of it as well, the remove program entry was broken, I had to download the crap again and install it again to finally get rid of it. I suspect it's left a few registry entries I haven't found yet.
Weatherbug may or may not be spyware, but I'm inclined to believe it is. Legit companies don't install upgrades against your consent and make it hard as hell to uninstall their software. That is how spyware/malware generally works though.
"please note that harassing the receptionist at these places is unlikely to cause any change in their investment policies"
No, but harrassing the *board* members might. That's why I love the SEC's EDGAR search. Names, and in name cases, phone numbers, for company board members.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
Just glanced through, but did any notice any slightly legit companys the firms also invest in? Granted a call to thier PBX wouldn't do much, but a nice movment to stop support the legit companies might get thier attention.
"please note that harassing the receptionist at these places is unlikely to cause any change in their investment policies."
Don't know about that. Harassing us on an inhuman scale appears to be working for them. Frankly, harassing them back, within the limits of the law of course, probably would be quite helpful. Many lobbysts and activists do far more about much less, and achieve considerable success.
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Yeah.... and don't go after the criminals.... go after the stores who sell the criminals guns.... no wait.... go after the gun companies that distribute the guns to the stores.... no wait.... go after the mining facilities that mine the ore to make the metal to make the machines to produce the guns to distribute to the stores who sell the guns to the criminals.
.02 just turned into .04.
Same logic here. Where does it stop? They'd find a way for funding. Obviously, they're getting a reutrn on their investement so there has to be some money coming in from somewhere.
That
Ouch. The article says that AOL complained to Microsoft over the spyware classification of WeatherBug, and Microsoft is going to remove the signatures for it now.
Lesson learned by spyware and affliated companies: reputable companies will give in and remove you from their scanner if you pay them off.
Our lesson: We cannot allow people to trust and buy into Microsoft AntiSpyware when it is starting to sell. (I'd say WinXP for that matter, to begin with, but that will take years to undo the damage already done)
And as if it weren't fairly obvious these days, many "spyware removal" companies are also likely to be partners with these spyware companies.
There was a particularly nasty adware on my brother's PC once, and during my time trying to see where it came from, I happened to click on one of the ads, which boasted to help you "get rid of spyware and adware". The ad took me to a generic "search engine" page, filled with spyware/adware "removal" programs.
But did I see things like Ad-Aware or Spybot listed? Why hell no. I saw a bunch of removal programs which I had never ever heard of in my life. And yes, they cost money.
So answer me this; why would a piece of adware give you an advertisement on how to remove adware, unless the companies that sell you the removal software are in on it too?
And you know that the companies know they're showing up on these adware "search engines", because there are referrer ID's in the urls. After confronting a company about it with my brother's infested PC, they of course pretended to know nothing about it. I find it very hard to believe that they could have a referrer ID from an adware search engine, and it be total coincidence.
So yes, I'm 100% convinced that many adware companies are allied with adware removal ones, if they aren't in fact one in the same many times. Just think of how many people actually end up clicking those ads and buying that software, just because they don't know any better.
Since adware companies are basically virus writers, with ads as their payloads, we can only hope that more laws will start to pop up to nip it in the bud. But in the meantime, perhaps Ad-Aware or Spybot can strike up some deal with vendors (if they haven't already) to include their software with machines. At least until Microsoft's adware removal tool starts shipping with Windows.
I hadn't thought about drawning a comparison between spamming and armed robbery.
I could however see equating it with the strategy the Goverment has taken with Terrorist organizations and the charities that fund them.
I could see the headlines now...."The Acme company has had it's assets frozen by the IRS after it was learned they invest heavily in spamming organizations."
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
Are these same venture capital companies also investing in spyware removal companies?
Just wondering.
Every time I convince myself I'm as cynical as I can be, something like this pops up, and I realize I'm still my old naive self.
I had assumed these companies were just handfuls of unethical developers. I can't believe VC firms are putting 10s of millions of dollars into these outfits.
That was a wakeup call.
Konfabulator offers several weather tracker widgets.
A thread further down correctly points out that the "Slashdot has not verified Edelman's information" comment is really unneccessary (and how often do we see that?) so I'm puzzled why the /. editors added it to this article?
Been a "fan" of Ben's stuff for a while - a real service to the Internet community - keep up the good work!!!
Which is actually rather refreshing... who'd have thought that we'd ever see a Slashdot article that reminds people not to be jackasses to the normal joes who work for these companies instead of harassing them with spam calls and email?
Of course, it's posted by Michael which means the next article will probably undo all that by including some smart-ass unnecessary comment...
Comment of the year
This can also work in reverse. Say a small company starts up that poses a threat to Microsoft. They can simply label it as "spyware" and problem solved. Since the small company doesn't likely have the revenue to attack Microsoft in court, MS wins by default.
Its not quite outsourcing. What I believe he's referring to is referral programs. Amazon.com and others do use referral programs to boost their advertising; its certainly outside advertising, but they still manage to do a lot of advertising themselves. These programs are usually designed to include as many people as possible, so its certainly no surprise that you find people pushing their referral program over gator. While I'd appreciate a more proactive stance against the practice, I certainly wouldn't want to destroy the program; perhaps some day I'd like to participate in a revenue sharing program. I hope that doesn't make me an evil person.
Even slashdot participates in this advertising process, so if you feel badly, perhaps you should stop visiting here?
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Open Source Sysadmin
You can also download the ForecastFox plugin for Firefox.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
I've been using the term Vomitware for a while now. Not only does it make you want to vomit, but it vomits itself all over your hard drive when it installs. ---AOL is also vomitware.
Removing it is just like making sure to check and clean behind the toilet after a night of praying to the porcelain god that the parallel is just to perfect to ignore.
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