Major Advertisers Caught In Spyware Net (Oops, That Crud Is Profitable Alert)

Yahoo/AP News ^ | 06/24/05 | Michael Gormley

[goldstategop]

ALBANY, N.Y. - Unwanted software slithered into Patti McMann's home computer over the Internet and unleashed an annoying barrage of pop-up ads that sometimes flashed on her screen faster than she could close them.

Annoying, for sure. But the last straw came a year ago when the pop-ups began plugging such household names as J.C. Penney Co. and Capital One Financial Corp., companies McMann expected to know better.

Didn't they realize that trying to reach people through spyware and its ad-delivering subset, called adware, would only alienate them?

"It irritated the heck out of me," said McMann, a 45-year-old former corporate executive from Klamath Falls, Ore. "It took a week to take off every little piece of crap that was put on my computer. Every time I rebooted, it started to come up again."

Pop-up ads carried by spyware and adware aren't just employed by fringe companies hawking dubious wares — such as those tricky messages that tell you your computer has been corrupted.

You can count some big tech companies among its users, including broadband phone provider Vonage Holdings Corp., online employment agency Monster Worldwide Inc. and online travel agencies Expedia Inc., Priceline.com Inc. and Orbitz LLC.

These companies acknowledge they've used adware to reach potential customers, though they say they shun any programs that monitor online surfing or extract personal information.

Even Fortune 500 companies have turned to adware: Sprint Corp. for its PCS mobile phones, major banks peddling Visa credit cards, Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). and retailers including Circuit City Stores Inc. And Mercedes-Benz USA had its cars flashing on consumer's computer screens before the company, fielding complaints, put on the brakes.

Repeated requests to Capital One about its use of adware pop-ups weren't returned. J.C. Penney spokesman Quinton Crenshaw said Friday the retailer stopped using adware less than a year ago and never used spyware, but does use "cookie-base advertising."

Spyware and adware often land on computers without their owners' full knowledge, hitching a ride during visits to porn and gambling sites or in downloads of free games and screensavers. Often, the payload arrives with downloads of cartoon-character wares aimed at children.

Infected computer users can get barraged with pop-up ads and find the unwanted programs difficult to remove.

So far, law enforcement has mostly targeted the transmitters. Intermix Media Inc. has agreed to pay $7.5 million in a tentative settlement of a lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

But Spitzer isn't stopping there. He is threatening to hold accountable household-name advertisers that use adware networks. No longer, says Spitzer, can companies play dumb.

That's making many advertisers nervous, though they insist they work with subcontractors and often don't know about any adware use until they get a complaint.

"There's plausible deniability at each tier," said Chris King, product marketing manager at anti-spyware vendor Blue Coat Systems Inc.

Big-time online advertising is built on layers: A big advertiser, such as a Fortune 500 company, directs an agency to handle a campaign. The agency then farms that message out to specialists in various media, which can include spyware and adware purveyors.

"We do everything we can to make sure our partners adhere to our standards," said Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chief executive.

Yet a pop-up ad for Vonage appeared in a screen shot that Spitzer used in his case against Intermix. Citron said he was unaware of the ad and promised to look into it, as he said the company does with similar complaints.

Mercedes-Benz says its ad was carried to hard drives last year by an agency it has since fired, while computer maker Dell USA has fired "a handful" of affiliates for carrying Dell's coupons and ads over adware.

"This is not a practice we condone," said Dell spokeswoman Jennifer Davis.

Dave Methvin, chief technology officer with tech diagnostic site PC Pitstop, said problems are no surprise given the many layers involved, but big advertisers have the clout to stop them.

"If you're going to be a good corporate citizen, part of your responsibility is to make sure that kind of thing doesn't happen rather than to say it's three levels down," Methvin said. "If a big company advertising on the Internet makes all of its suppliers down the chain sign a statement (and agree to penalties for breaking the rules), quickly the problem would go away."

It's not just big advertisers who have ties to spyware and adware.

Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) made a deal with adware company Claria Corp., formerly known as Gator Corp., to provide search listings for its SearchScout toolbar. The popular search engines Ask Jeeves and Google also benefit from adware, says Internet researcher Benjamin Edelman.

He says an Ask Jeeves toolbar generates ads without users' full consent, while Google's search listings appear in queries made through a questionable third-party toolbar. Ask Jeeves and Google officials dispute Edelman's account and say they don't use any spyware or adware. Company policy bans the use of adware by Google, said spokesman Barry Schnitt.

Several states have adopted anti-spyware bills, and the U.S. House approved two in May that carry jail sentences of up to five years in prison. The bills, which don't target advertisers, are now before the Senate, where similar legislation died last year.

While Spitzer and some lawmakers in Alaska, Pennsylvania and Utah say advertisers should also be held accountable, not everyone agrees.

"So many people have such antipathy toward adware and spyware vendors that it blinds them to the underlying legal principles," said Eric Goldman, a cyber law professor at Marquette University.

He said any liability would be unprecedented and would be akin to holding an advertiser responsible for libel by the newspaper in which the ad appears.

Some advertisers defend the practice.

"It is just a marketing tool that we use," said Expedia spokesman David Dennis.

Expedia, like many other adware users, insists it has rigorous standards and checks to make sure customers want their ads and can easily remove the software if they don't. Dennis said the company works closely with its ad agencies to make sure.

Melinda Tiemeyer, spokeswoman for Sprint PCS, said Internet users have clicked on ads delivered by adware, meaning they find them useful. Sprint is OK with using adware because users, she said, accept it in exchange for phone service offers and discounts.

But other advertisers including Netflix Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have changed their attitudes.

"I think it was more of a realization that this was becoming more of a concern in consumers' eyes and there was a growing level of frustration," said John Bonomo of Verizon, which discontinued adware last July. Still, "it was effective," he said.

"Clearly folks are uncomfortable about it," Edelman said. "Everyone knows that everyone hates pop-ups ... eventually companies just got embarrassed, especially when they get on your computer through this kind of trickery."

[MarkL]

I'd like to also add JavaCool Software's Spyware Blaster and Spyware Guard which can help keep spyware from being installed in the first place.

Mark

[MarkL]

There is also a msn (Microsoft Network) function in the IE browser on which many pop-ups piggyback. I can't remember what I went into and clicked (or unclicked), but that also stopped a lot of the junk. (This was a couple of years ago. Google should be able to come up with this.)

Close, it's the Windows Messenger Protocol, which is used on Windows networks for status messages. WinXP SP2 has turned this service off, but if you need another way to get it, you can get Shoot the Messenger at Steve Gibson's site. While you're there, if you've got WinXP, you also want to get Unplug & Pray and The Dcombobulator.

These are "toggle" programs. Just copy them to your computer and run them. switching the service on or off, if you ever need to. There's NO reason that a home user should ever need these. While I'm thinking about it, you also need Socket to Me, and Socket Lock. Socket To Me is a test to see if you've got a vlunerability on your computer which can make it easier to hijack and use in a "distributed denial of service attack." Socket Lock disables that vulnerability.

And while you're at Steve's web site, you might also want to take the firewall leak test, just to see how effective your firewall is.

Mark

[oldcomputerguy]

"Personally, I use Spybot S & D"

I recommend going into Spybots advanced mode and seeing what is available. This program is a lot more than what is defaulted on. Be careful changing things if you have no idea what they are controlling. It will also remove much of Bill Gates tracking s/w in advanced mode, they are called usage tracks under "FileSets"

I also HIGHLY recommend turning ON "Tea Timer" when you install it. The Tea Timer function is a mostly silent registry change monitor. If a program tries to change the registry, the Spybot "Resident" (Tea Timer for a strange reason) will ask you if this change is allowed or click the "?" for more informations about the request. I suspect it can save your bacon at times.

The TeaTimer is the 4th selection on the install wizard and is defaulted off. It can also be turned on/off in the advanced mode under Advanced/Tools/SystemStartUp/TeaTimer by checking the box. This function also allows you control of programs that run at StartUp.

There is a lot more than meets the eye in this program, most of it good from what I can tell.

[fuzzycat]

One of those totally crashed my last computer. The new one is running AdSubtract and it works very well. I still am paranoid about those lyric sites tho.

[psychoknk]

All too often it seems the only value that counts in Corporate America is the bottom line.

I wasn't aware of any other values that counted in corporate America.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

XP SP2 and Zone Alarm holds off most of the bad guys.
ZA asks when something tries to install and you just deny it.
Norton, AdAware and Pest Patrol kill the ones that get through.

[Free Vulcan]

Outpost firewall
Avast antivirus
AntiVir antivirus
Spyware Blaster
Spyware Guard
Adaware
Spybot S&D
ID blaster
Opera browser
Mailwasher spam filter


All of these are free. I have zero problems. AVG is good too, but doesn't run well on my older Win 98 computer.

[MarkL]

Yup, lots of really cool stuff that Spybot does, and you're right, as with all powerful tools, they will give you all the rope you need to hang yourself with! Same with HijackThis... Heck, I used to program in C, back in the "first edition" days of the K&R white book... Way before any C compiler had any silly stuff like "array boundery checking." It was fun to try writing something to the 100th element of a 10 element array, just to see what would happen! lol

Mark

[Diligent]

Backing up data often is important, but once you get your system to a stable state, I recommend using imaging software to either *image* the entire hard drive to DVDs, or use the imaging software to *copy* to another hard drive (they are getting cheap), or perhaps both. Keeping this form of backup off-site is another thing to consider.

I had a hard drive crash and this save me a ton of time in restoring my system.

Although Macs have few of these problems, they can still have hardware go south, so backups and images should be considered too, IMHO. :-/

[Randy Papadoo]

Yo, Booka......did you get enough? ;-D

GJ, Mark, with the good info.