A Day in the Life of a Spyware Company

prostoalex writes "Business Week has a detailed expose of Direct Revenue. The article has some juicy details on the everyday workings of a spyware outlet, talks about the the business model and advertisers who funnel cash to Direct Revenue, and even mentions Direct Revenue's anti-spyware achievements (the company's installer blasted away competing spyware apps, so that the user's computer wouldn't be overwhelmed with redundant pop-ups)."

Comments

Re:Missing important details

[Metrol]

Not so. Just have to dig a bit into the court records provided publicly. Here's the PDF of the court document.

It shows the address of these folks on page 2 as 107 Grand Street, New York, NY. Pulling up Google Earth it looks like you can find these folks at 40 deg 43'15.8N 74 deg 00'04.9W.

Not that I would suggest anything as childish as signing these folks up for free advertisements or any such thing. Just seems like since these folks are digging through everyone else's privacy I'm sure they wouldn't mind having their company address a matter of well known public record.

The IMPORTANT part of the article: VONAGE!

[Anonymous Coward]

For persons concerned about spyware it should be pointed out that the important thing is not the spyware company,

It is the companies which employ them.

The article glosses over that with only slight mention. . .

As a victim of the Aurora trojan on a Windoze box I became intimately aware of Direct Revenue and the damage they have caused to many people. Until this article, however, I always assumed they were supported by pr0n sites and spammers.

Instead it turns out Vonage is their main customer!

It's bad enough that Vonage plasters their annoying ads all over the net, and plays their annoying jingle on every channel of TV. Obviously, though, that is not sufficient. They must also use spyware to hook customers and violate more US and International laws.

Vonage has a history of this type of illegal behavior (in chronological order):

1. Its Chairman, Jeffrey Citron, was charged by the SEC with Securities violations due to illegal trades, while he was Chairman of Datek Securities, before starting Vonage.

2. Vonage has consistently engaged in anticompetitvive behaviour against its competitors by blocking SIP calls, and locking down their devices to prevent customers from using the devices with competitors.

3. Vonage has consistently engaged in deceptive advertising when selling their equipment and services by not disclosing that the equipment is not really owned by the consumer (it can't be unlocked to work with other providers).

4. Vonage has consistently engaged in deceptive marketing by convincing customers to LNP port their existing phone number to Vonage when the LNP port could not be done. Even though Vonage could not port the number due to lack of a CLEC in their area code, Vonage reps would tell the customer it could be done "soon".

5. Vonage deceptively operates a web site at Vonage-Forum.com. Only recently has a notice gone up that the site is not operated by Vonage. The site, however, uses the trademarked Vonage name and logo, and has Vonage ads on it.

6. The whole Vonage IPO stock fiasco: not surprising if you noticed item #1.

If Vonage doesn't qualify for U.S. Federal Prosecution on at least ONE of these items something is clearly wrong with our legal system that supposedly was fixed after Enron/Worldcom.

Re:The IMPORTANT part of the article: VONAGE!

[grylnsmn]

Let's look at each of your points.

1. Its Chairman, Jeffrey Citron, was charged by the SEC with Securities violations due to illegal trades, while he was Chairman of Datek Securities, before starting Vonage.

If he was charged before, then he was either found not guilty (in which case from the law's standpoint he didn't do anything wrong and it can't be held against him) or he was found guilty and paid the penalty for his actions (in which case, unless the penalty included abandoning the business field, he is also in the clear).

2. Vonage has consistently engaged in anticompetitvive behaviour against its competitors by blocking SIP calls, and locking down their devices to prevent customers from using the devices with competitors.

They sold you a device designed to work with their service. What law requires them to provide support to you in using that device outside of hte parameters for which it was designed and sold? You are free to modify your device all you want, but they are not responsible for helping you or fixing it if you make it unusable.

3. Vonage has consistently engaged in deceptive advertising when selling their equipment and services by not disclosing that the equipment is not really owned by the consumer (it can't be unlocked to work with other providers).

It was sold for the purpose of connecting to the Vongage service, and no representation was made that it can be connected to other services (at least, I can't find any in the materials I got with my adapter). If anything, they are up front about it. You are still free to modify it if you want, but they are not required to help you, nor are they required to make it easy for you. If you want an unlocked adapter, you need to search out and buy an unlocked adapter.

4. Vonage has consistently engaged in deceptive marketing by convincing customers to LNP port their existing phone number to Vonage when the LNP port could not be done. Even though Vonage could not port the number due to lack of a CLEC in their area code, Vonage reps would tell the customer it could be done "soon".

This one may have some merit, but in order to really prosecute it, you would need to establish that it is company policy, not simply the actions of individual customer service reps.

5. Vonage deceptively operates a web site at Vonage-Forum.com. Only recently has a notice gone up that the site is not operated by Vonage. The site, however, uses the trademarked Vonage name and logo, and has Vonage ads on it.

Just because a site uses the official name and logo doesn't mean that it is operated by those people, especially if they have a notice saying that they aren't. Advertising also does not equal ownership. Vonage puts ads on a lot of sites that they don't own, operate, or control.

6. The whole Vonage IPO stock fiasco: not surprising if you noticed item #1.

I read the prospectus, and it was rather clear from the information provided that it would not do all that well. That is the fault of the people who either bought the stock without reading the prospectus, or who bought it in spite of all of the warnings. Those who made legal commitments to purchase stock but then wanted to back out after seeing the drop in price still have that legal obligation to purchase the stock.

Of the items you listed, you have at most one valid point. Perhaps you might reconsider a lot of your position.

Re:Oh, What Hath Marketing Wrought?

[Orange Goblin]

Virus scanner: free, hardware firewall: wireless router, and as I said, Adaware and system restore are rarely needed (with the system restore being a one off). My Win2k box has been running for 4 years, and that is a crappy Dell machine. All you have to do is follow good pratice and be sure what you are downloading/accepting etc. Oh and don't use IE, because I agree, it is a piece of crap.

Re:Missing important details

[Van Cutter Romney]

www.direct-revenue.com is 204.16.121.20 Let's /. them...