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Advertisers May Face Ridicule For Adware
An anonymous reader writes "A ZDNet article reports that the FTC may be gearing up to humiliate companies that advertise via adware." From the article: "The FTC would publicly announce and publish the name of a company that advertises using adware that installs itself surreptitiously on consumer PCs or using spyware, Leibowitz said. He would recommend publicly shaming advertisers to the other FTC commissioners if the adware problem doesn't decrease, he said."
I can see it now... review sites all over the 'net mention this as the first item in a review of a piece of software:
Spyware: YES
Then again... there may be some problems related to what is considered spyware and what's not. For example, is a piece of software that "phones home" for ANY reason considered spyware?
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No such thing as bad publicity.
This isn't just an issue for spamvertisers. Delegating fundamental business processes (e.g., customer billing) to third parties seems to be a popular with all sorts of companies as a means of obfuscating procedures and dodging responsibility for mistakes. I call bullshit on all of it!
I think the technical term for that is "money machine"
a.k.a. "magic money machine"
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
a) They don't get revenue for this, and
:)
b) They don't get their PRODUCTS advertised, either. Just their name in a blacklist.
Sincerely, we've all heard about spyware companies suing antivirus for blacklisting them. Can they sue the FTC, now?
That's what we DON'T want them to do - list companies that are not part of the problem (people's machines becoming unusable through crapware) but who technically meet some definition of "spyware vendors". This will undermine the credibility of the initiative, which is to call attention to companies participating in abusive practices.
Joe Shmoe home-user doesn't know what programs are spyware and what aren't. Most people are beginning to realize now that there are programs out there that are bad, though. Giving people information as to which programs are bad for their computer usually results in them not using said programs.
It's true that even bad publicity can be good, but don't underestimate the power of information.
Wow, public shaming is as severe as hitting those offenders with a wet bus ticket or a tap on the knuckles.
;)
Hrm... I've heard that in Japan, that public shaming is usually followed by ritual suicide.
Perhaps we should encourage the practice
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Certainly. A better idea might have been to get the major search engines to drop the companies, their subsidiaries and owners, off the search results like Google did with BMW (albeit for a week).
/. bug #926803 - Why I can post.
Sorry, I'd tend to believe that most coders have a code of ethics or at least a set of personal morals. Those coders that write the spyware intentionally make it malicious. Of course they're doing what they're told, and if they actually cared, they'd NOT DO IT. I type this as I have a coder behind me reading along.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.