 |
 |
 |
|
| SecurityProNews > Insider Reports > Insider > Ask Toolbars Hit With Spyware Claim |
[ insider_reports_insider ]Ask Toolbars Hit With Spyware Claim
David Utter Staff Writer 2006-10-17  Insider Reports RSS Feed
Spyware researcher Ben Edelman has documented several issues with toolbars distributed by IAC Search and Media's FunWebProducts that lead him to criticize how those toolbars function.
Although Edelman noted he has been asked multiple times not to refer to the software as Ask Toolbars, he rejected those requests for multiple reasons. "The toolbars all drive traffic to pages that show Ask search results and ads," he wrote. "'Ask toolbars' is the best way to concisely convey the toolbars' origin, lineage, and business model." Edelman considered that Ask needs to drive traffic to its sites and search results, the latter being the place where Ask displays lucrative contextual advertising. Doing so with the toolbars has been accompanied by the sorts of business practices that have attracted the attention of people like Eliot Spitzer in the past. One serious implication Edelman made involved how other spyware companies promote Ask toolbars. He presented three screenshots of sites displaying ads for Ask toolbars, where the spyware had injected those ads into the browser. All three of those are recent examples, and run counter to claims made to Edelman by Ask that the company has cleaned up the ad networks they use to promote the toolbars. In one example, the Google home page has an Ask ad displayed at the top center of it, "a place where Google does not sell ads to any company at any price," Edelman wrote. His report includes several other areas of concern. One contention holds that Ask targets kids to install toolbars, and uses ad elements like cartoons and smiley faces to entice them to do so: On one view, Ask's targeting of children presents no policy concern: Yes, Ask targets kids, but it (arguably) does what the law requires in its dealings with children, so some might conclude there's nothing wrong here. But my view is that Ask's behavior is noteworthy. Ask's representative vehemently denied that Ask targets kids, and for good reason: It would be unseemly, at best, to build a business by convincing kids to install software they don't need and are ill-equipped to understand. Yet that's my best assessment of Ask's toolbar installation practices.
IAC has put a lot of money and effort into promoting Ask for search, going so far as to purchase radio and television advertising to accomplish this. The company's technology efforts have been focused on placing a virtual reference shelf at one's fingertips. Undoing the good work performed by its engineers by leaving Ask open to questions about dubious toolbar installation practices does a disservice to those staffers, as well as users of Ask. --- Tag: Ask.com Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Yahoo! My Web |  Furl
Bookmark SecurityProNews - 
View All Articles by David Utter About the Author: David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews. More insider_reports_insider Articles Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
 |
iEntry Featured Services: Jayde Member Services | Forums | Freeware | Advertise with Us |
 |
| Contact
Us | Advertise
| Newsletter
Archive | Sitemap
| Submit an
Article | News
Feeds SecurityProNews is an iEntry, Inc.® publication - 1998-2008 All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy and Legal |
Join the WebProWorld Forums: Click Here |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
