[endthematrix]

"Of course, the merchants may not have intended to support spyware developers; they may have approved the affiliates without fully understanding the affiliates' practices. "

I most assured this is the case. I worked a little with LinkShare and FTD.com affiliate programs. FTD was very concerned about trademark violators and web content.

[goldstategop]

There's a lot of rip-off software on the web too. Most of it useless.

[Ben Edelman]

But FTD is a big Gator advertiser.

And LinkShare makes tons of money through unwanted software on users' computers. (Consider: Ebates and all the other TopMoxie programs. 180solutions. BargainBuddy. And the list goes on.)

So LinkShare could do a lot more to stop these practices, if it wanted to. And FTD is specifically supporting Gator. They're not exactly model companies for helping make these problems better.