[HiTech RedNeck]

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.

But watch these yawning, lugubrious corporations pop a legal cork with extreme promptness if somebody tries to profit unfairly off of their names.

[goldstategop]

Yep. They don't care how they're marketed but let someone infringe on their copyright or patent marks and they let loose the legal brigades. Deniability, my ass. All too often it seems the only value that counts in Corporate America is the bottom line.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[DB]

All the company has to do is have in the contract the advertiser signs - NO ADWARE and that the advertiser will be held responsible if they do - and presto, there won't be anymore adware in these companies names anymore.

Duh...