Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Spyware Still Cheating Merchants

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the players-still-be-hatin dept.

Jamie found an interesting story about how Spyware is still on the move. It talks about how Spyware vendors are trying to clean up their image, but still doing fishy things. It breaks down several common types of spyware and some analysis of each.

7 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Ben Edelman, here by bedelman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm Ben Edelman, the author of the piece. I'm happy to answer any questions folks may have.

    It would be particularly interesting to hear from merchants and by legit (non-spyware-using) affiliates who are ripped off by the practices I documented.

    1. Re:Ben Edelman, here by idesofmarch · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Which pop-up blocker did you find most effective?

    2. Re:Ben Edelman, here by Aladrin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No offense, but isn't that the same as all other types of advertising? If you feel you are getting enough for your money, you buy the advertising. If you don't, you don't.

      TV ads continue to be annoying and people are actively avoiding them now. Instead of making better commercials that don't annoy people, they just keep shelling out the money for the same old crap.

      Radio, ditto.

      Newspapers, magazines... Other than the sale ads and video game magazines (which are disappointing, because the ads rarely tell you anything the actual game), I don't think I've bothered to do more than glance at an ad in years.

      How is 'sponsored-search advertising' any different?

      And you say 'clickfraud is rampant.' ... Are you saying that you think Google is faking clicks? Or pays someone to? I can't see how anyone but Google would benefit from this. (I suppose the paranoid part of me says your competitor could be faking the clicks, to get rid of your ads... But that could have serious legal consequences.)

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  2. Pop-up blocker by bedelman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't have a strong view on pop-up blockers. I often use Google Toolbar. But in XP SP2, IE's internal pop-up blocker works fine too.

    One key insight: Pop-up blockers don't stop spyware-originating pop-ups. Pop-up blockers stop pop-ups that load through a web browser, i.e. as a result of JavaScript code within pages users request. But pop-up blockers do nothing to stop full Windows programs (e.g. spyware) installed on users' computers.

  3. Now google has a till option.... by simm1701 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can see the ideal solution to this type of advertising fraud.

    If I am running a site selling certain goods, then I don't really care how many hits I get, I'm bothered about how many sales I get.

    Now if google can set up an adwords system for me that does not charge per click, but instead I use their payment system as a check out and grant them a commission on refered sales (as long as they can prove that the refereal was sent via a targetted ad in the current browser session would be my condition) then they can take say 5% of the sale (on top of their normal processing comission.

    Then the problem comes down to trusting google to correctly report which sales on your site are actually directly from one of their adverts and not from their main search.... however its only one company, its a large and well known company so auditing it would be a lot easier than many of the smaller more dubious companies.

    --
    $_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
  4. Maybe its time for a new name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anyone else find it funny that spyware is trying to clean up its image? Maybe they should start with the name. The very name SPY WARE isn't very clean. Maybe they should change their name to "used to spy now trying to decieve ware"

  5. Yes, it is frustrating. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have tried to explain to my relatives and friends, with "real world" analogies. Like, "OK, the cable company says just leave the door unlocked, that way our tech can get in and install your new cable box and you dont have to house sit. Will you agree? Wont you feel outraged if all the merchants in town walk into your living room and paste their advertisement on your wall? Yes, security will entail some inconvences like staying at home and letting in the technician. But you would not leave the home unlocked, would you?"

    The usual responses are that "You are exaggerating the dangers", and "I have nothing of value for anyone to steal in my computer" or "it is too complex to lock the machine down" or "I dont know how to lock the machine down" or "there are millions of people who dont lock their machine down, are they all fools and are you the only smart guy out there".

    Their file sharing stops working. They call the tech. Some cousin of me from India walks them step-by-step to turn off the firewall in the router so that "he can come in and fix it", turns off the firewall in the machine, turns on remote assistance, fixes something and leaves. For the tech guy the metric is "minutes to solve the problem". Staying on line to turn back all the firewalls and turning off remote-assistances "does not pay". The machine gets pwend even before he is done and he recommends wiping the hard disk and restoring, wiping out everything the customer had in the disk.

    It is a torture to be the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact