Feds Asked to Take Action Against Adware Creator

An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that a consumer watchdog group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to take action against 180solutions and CJB.net for unfair and deceptive business practices. The Center for Democracy and Technology submitted over 150 pages of examples of 180s bad practices." From the article: "180Solutions deliberately and repeatedly duped Internet users into downloading intrusive advertising software, according to a Center for Democracy and Technology complaint (download PDF). The company continued these practices even after it pledged to better itself and after receiving warnings from spyware experts and privacy advocates, the group said."

Comments

and it won't matter...

[flakier]

...because they will say something like it was their "partners" that engaged in the deceptive practices. Then they will say that they will watch their partners more closely in the future.

Re:and it won't matter...

[halcyon1234]

it won't matter because their is no public outcry yet at this point. Most non-Slashdot computer users seem to look at it as part of life. Nor are any of the corporate interests flexing their muscles to get the government hopping.

Actually, it won't matter because even though we (tech savy, anti-malware consumers) are the vast majority of the marketplace, we are the vast minority of Crapware 180's "customers".

What power do we really have? A boycott won't work. None of us buy thier "products" anyways. The Malware makers income is all based on being paid by shady or downright illegal companies for advertisments. And all of those companies rely on uninfomred (read: stupid) people seeing those ads and responding to them. It may not be many people, but it's enough to make a profit. (After all, when you're either a) selling snake oil or b) stealing people's money/credit card numbers/identity/whatever, only a few suckers are needed to make a profit).

So we can't do any economical harm to them through the usual methods. We can't boycott products, or refuse to shop at the advertised merchants. And even if one or two of those merchants get nailed/go bankrupt/whatever, there will be 500 more right behind them, all waiting to get their share of the sucker pie.

Corporations aren't going to do anything about it, either. None of the "merchants" are their direct competators. Those corps are focusing on "ligitamate" consumers (ie: us). They don't see Crapware 180 as a competator. They may see it as a minor nusicence to their own networks. But keep in mind that there are SEVERAL corporations who's business model depends on the existence of black hat advertisers. (After all, with no spyware infested computers, there's no way to see spyware removal programs/services...).

So the government can try to step in and blow up Crapware 180, or any of their ilk, but it'll only go so far. Most of those companies have gone to great lengths to (just barely) stay within the letter of the law (or at least, snuggled safely in a nest of loopholes). Any action they can try to take would get tied up for years, if not decades, in the courts. Crapware 180 will make enough money to survive the legal actions. And, in the worst case, they can fold and secretly/illegaly shuffle their money away, only to pop up again as another company.

Personally, I still think that a user supported massive attack on the spyware companies will do any good. Something like the Make Love Not Spam screensaver from a year or so ago. Either DDoS the servers to hell (of the merchants or the adware provider, whichever), or some form of massive "click fraud" type attack against the merchants to make it too expensive to operate. (No profit = no companies).

They had it coming

[mikeswi]

For the last two years, 180Solutions has been issuing press releases claiming that they are going to clean up their affiliates. Then an affiliate is caught installing trojans and sneaking onto computers without consent. Then 180Solutions issues a press release .....

And round and round we go.

If they spent 1/10 as much time actually controlling their affiliates as they do writing up press releases, maybe something might have been done.

Throw them in jail...

[Number_5]

and massively fine anyone who advtises with them. My mom has called me in tears because she could not use her computer due to popups etc. The only way to end this problem is to fine the advertisers.

180 will always be right on the edge

[putko]

180Solutions is always right on the line. They used to play really dirty, until it was illegal.

Then they did the arms-length thing: blame the affiliates, but encourage them to break the law.

I don't see how their behavior is any different from companies that mislead people as to what they are buying or signing (e.g. I'll give you a check for a dollar -- but it is also a contract that switches your long distance service to may carrier).

Some people are stupid. Our laws assume that people are responsible and that if they sign a contract, that is them willingly singing a contract.

I suspect the problem is that some people are so stupid that they aren't really responsible, and that is especially the case when it comes to computers running spyware.

No more spyware!

[BHennessy]

This will stop spyware dead in its tracks, just like how when the "spam king" got sued all spam ended. ...

Re:Stupid adware.

[redheaded_stepchild]

Perhaps I'm the only one who sees this on a regular basis:
When I uninstall 180Solutions based stuff from a clients computer, I get a little questionairre that I am required to fill out. Questions are usually closely related to "Why did you remove this software?", "What services would have made you keep this software?" and "What could we do in the future to better serve you?" The first two are followed by drop-down choices (none of which are even close to my desired answers) and the last is a text field. Now, I don't know about you guys, but if they had honored my request for a Remote-controlled Sniper Rifle auto-aimed at their CEO's head, I might have considered keeping the software. Oh well.

Re:And not always duped...

[eikonos]

That's Microsoft innovation in action! ;)

A dose of their own medicine..

[nixkuroi]

I think the feds should be granted warrants to enter the 180's employee's homes and build furniture in them. This furniture would be covered with fleas, ticks and head lice and be generally annoying to the person who lived there and there family. They would also be painted in ugly colors and make noises anytime someone entered the home or used another piece of furniture. Additionally, the furniture and appliances would be built in such a way that it would be difficult or impossible to remove from the homes without causing damage.

Maybe we could send them some Sony DRM cd's too.

Your spyware stories? Here's mine

[spoco2]

Ok... I don't really get spyware on my pcs... neither my wife or I go to porn sites (ok... in my youth I did... :/ ), I've made firefox the default browser on all my pcs, we have AVG free virus protection, Sygate Personal firewall... although, bugger... I just noticed they've discontinued that... will have to switch to ZoneAlarm now I suppose... humph. And we run Ad-Aware
  and SpyBot Search and Destroy every now and again...

But just recently I've had to clean my father-in-law's pc, and a friends one too.

Now the father-in-law's one was pretty bad, popups would launch with IE, and there was a lot of CPU activity etc. that was not accounted for... nasty stuff... but a clean with Adaware, Spybot, using Add/Remove to kill anything that looked suspect, putting firefox on etc. and we have a clean computer.

The other computer though... my GOD! On startup it would immediately go to 100% CPU usage... and once you could finally get Task Manager up it was iexplore.exe that was doing the damage... a few minutes later when it'd actually respond to a kill process and the work of cleaning it could finally take place... well... hours later and using all tools I think it's clean now... but it required all of them to get it all... with HiJack This being the final saviour to remove the last of the damage...

And what were the biggest damage makers? The damn programs that these people downloaded that claimed they were 'Spyware cleaners'... but really were spyware themselves.

EVIL

FUCKERS

they prey on people who already have pcs loaded up with spyware... and put more on.

Of course the second of the two pcs was infected so damn badly (Spybot found over 3 thousand items) due to porn surfing... almost always the cause of these things.

I don't know how the makers of these programs live with themselves... there's nothing redeeming about what they do... AT ALL.

RIAA

[qualico]

Sure wish we could pit RIAA against 180.

Why is it that we can have organizations like the RIAA to protect industry interests, yet there is no one to protect the interests of consumers?

They're not the only evil ones...

[js9kv]

180solutions are scumbags, true.

What about 2o7.net? These bottom-feeders have been using a domain name that looks like an IP address for ages - and there's no legitimate reason for it, other than to confuse those who can't tell zero's from O's in their firewall reports. Even their hosts appear with stuff like 192.168.1.2o7.net.

Most folks out there would miss that in a firewall report if they didn't read it closely and wonder why an IP address appeared in the resolved names column.

What ever happened to the Internet Death Penalty? Boy, do we need it now!

Re:And not always duped...

[Killall -9 Bash]

Its been a long time since i've used a virus scanner at home, and I'll tell you why:

1. They can only find known virii. Maybe being 'protected' from tens of thousands of viruses comforts you, but I'm worried about the few no one knows about yet, and AV software provides no protection against those.
2. They are only partially sucsessfull in removing virii. How many times have you seen "Delete Failed! click here for more info"? I've seen it a few times too many. I SHOULD NEVER EVER SEE THIS MESSAGE! This is a design failure.
3. AV software is not effective as a means of prevention. Virii come in two flavors-- trojans and worms. Trojan==idiot user clicked on BrittneySpearsNaked.jpg.exe; AV cannot prevent this. Worm==windows security issue; AV cannot prevent this. This is an over-simplification, and may not be 100% technically accurate, but you get the picture.
4. (sum of points 2 and 3) If AV software can't prevent infection, and if it sometimes can't even remove the infection, what good is it again? Its good for Symantec, its good for Macafee, and its good for IT professionals who get to say "its not my fault, I did everything i could to prevent it" next time a code red happens.