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Thread: Anti-spyware group Coast hits an iceberg

  1. #1
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    Post Anti-spyware group Coast hits an iceberg

    The Consortium of Anti-Spyware Technology vendors (Coast) was founded in 2003 as a nonprofit group of anti-spyware companies to help establish industry-binding guidelines defining spyware and a code of ethics surrounding the distribution of desktop software. But in February, co-founder Webroot Software dissented when, according to its vice president of research, the group sought to reform adware developers by helping them change and become certified Coast members....

    ....The walkout had come just weeks after the group welcomed as a member adware maker 180Solutions, a company whose practices have been repeatedly in the spotlight. That decision capped growing frustration over the group's direction, according to representatives from Aluria and Webroot, making it impossible for them to remain.
    http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5...=zdfd.newsfeed

    From the COAST code of ethics

    http://www.coast-info.org/codeofethics.htm

    Members and member products or services may not:
    Provide incomplete uninstalls
    Utilize drive-by downloads
    Send or cause to send unsolicited email
    Participate in bundled installs that do not disclose info in EULA, or has a confusing EULA or is buried in the EULA
    Engage in misrepresentation of intention: a product should do what it promises to do; further, it should not omit or hide activities
    Provide fully automated product updates without the user's awareness: they may only be done with specific customer consent
    Connect to a remote system without the user's awareness to transmit usage statistics and/or personally identifiable information
    Modify web page information as displayed by site operator: replace text/graphics, substituting ads for other ads, etc
    Think the companies that left had doubts their new member met this criteria?
    \"You got a mouth like an outboard motor..all the time putt putt putt\" - Foghorn Leghorn

  2. #2
    Member ams2d's Avatar
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    Think the companies that left had doubts their new member met this criteria?
    From the article mentioned:
    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=265877

    Edelman has published a detailed research report about 180solutions that calls the company's installation practices unethical.
    I am not surprised that they have finally dissolved.
    Wise men talk because they have something to say;
    fools, because they have to say something.
    Plato

  3. #3
    They call me the Hunted foxyloxley's Avatar
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    Old saying that "Set a thief to catch a thief."

    Although "Cat amongst the pigeons" seems more apt

    Too many cooks
    Fox to guard the chickens

    Your turn

    so now I'm in my SIXTIES FFS
    WTAF, how did that happen, so no more alterations to the sig, it will remain as is now

    Beware of Geeks bearing GIF's
    come and waste the day :P at The Taz Zone

  4. #4
    AO Ancient: Team Leader
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    Foxy:

    SNAFU

    .... nuff said?
    Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you.....
    \"A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.\" - Thucydides

  5. #5
    The Doctor Und3ertak3r's Avatar
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    have read here also
    http://www.revenews.com/wayneporter/...0565.html#more

    180solutions.. dunno which is worse their ethics or their software..
    "Consumer technology now exceeds the average persons ability to comprehend how to use it..give up hope of them being able to understand how it works." - Me http://www.cybercrypt.co.nr

  6. #6
    Senior Member wiskic10_4's Avatar
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    from 180Solutions' website:

    180solutions is a leading provider of Internet search marketing solutions. We provide search assistant software that delivers consumers to highly targeted websites on behalf of advertisers when they are searching the Internet for products or services.
    Yeah, *here's* a group that I'd want establishing "industry-binding guidelines defining spyware and a code of ethics surrounding the distribution of desktop software..."

    meh, what a crock...

    -Wiski C.

    EDIT: This guy nailed it: http://netrn.net/spywareblog/archive...tops-the-list/

    BTW, TigerShark's post reminded me:
    http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/s/SNAFUprinciple.html
    My Corner of the Intarwebz: Jeremy Dean Online

  7. #7
    AO Ancient: Team Leader
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    highly targeted websites on behalf of advertisers
    Basic translation:-

    We provide content sorted precisely by the amount of cash the lame crap provider of "content" pays us. As a genuine search engine we absolutely suck but we make the interface look pretty and give the moron users lot's of opportunities to try to get "free stuff" while we collect their personal information and sell it for yet more profit to other virtual sharks that will eat them alive like we are trying to. Then we give them the rubbish from our highest paying customers which are usually shady lying bastards that are doing the same as us.... but luckily the (L)users are absolute morons and still use our uttlerly useless "service"

    There are numerous "search engines" out there that do exactly this.... 180solutions is one of the _high_ level pieces of crap that invades systems whenever, however and in any way they can.
    Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you.....
    \"A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.\" - Thucydides

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