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
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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.
"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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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.
Are these same venture capital companies also investing in spyware removal companies?
Just wondering.
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...
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