Is Yahoo Actively Supporting Adware?

conq writes "According to BusinessWeek, a report said Yahoo was actively supporting the companies that spawn pop-up ads. In early September, Yahoo engineer Jeremy D. Zawodny sounded off on his blog: "Do I like those [software installation] practices? Hell no. It's insulting and disrespectful."" update the story submission takes Jeremy out of context which he blogs about and says mean things about us.

Here is the real issue...LEGALLY, what is Spyware?

[PenguinBoyDave]

I work for a company that produces an Anti-Spyware product that got bitch-slapped in court some time back by Gator for calling Gator Spyware. Now...WE all know what Spyware is. They know what Spyware is, but (and please, correct me if I'm wrong, because I might be) until a court of law legally defines Spyware, it seems to me that YAHOO and everyone else can load your machine up without an ounce of legal liability.

Can I trust Yahoo? I think not.

[Futurepower(R)]

Over the years, I have learned to have zero (0) trust in Yahoo.

From the Business Week article:

"Sure, no one issue will turn off Yahoo users in droves." One issue will definitely convince a large percentage of people never to visit Yahoo.

Another quote:

"... Yahoo risks tarnishing its reputation as a trustworthy Net player." Notice that doing an internet search is called "Googling". For knowledgeable people, Yahoo has a bad reputation. For others, Yahoo has no reputation at all.

Business writers write a lot of DISGUSTING nonsense about computer technology:

"To Yahoo's credit, it is leading industrywide discussions aimed at devising new practices for the adware companies." Here's another quote: "Yahoo also insists it does business only with adware companies that adhere to best practices..."

It seems to me that Yahoo cannot compete, so it is trying every trick to stay alive.

Not real news: AOL and Yahoo and MSN will merge. The combined company will be called CyberHell.

Re:More evil?

[Prophet of Nixon]

Er, this is new? I've found Yahoo to be blatantly evil since the late 90s, and I go out of my way to never visit their site. They've done nothing but hemorrhage ads, spam, and crap over the net since they began (and they've spewed plenty of ads into other media as well). I've never understood how a company that does nothing but promote misery stays afloat, much less profits.

Re:Trust Yahoo?

[Red Flayer]

It's not about Yahoo vs. Google. It's about Yahoo versus me.

That said, I don't trust Google either... I just distrust them less.

And it's not about choice here -- it's about informed choice. As we learn more about the business practices of Yahoo, Google, et al, then we gain the ability to make informed choices. But until every company comes clean about the things that like Yahho has been getting bad publicity about, we don't have real choice.

"Go wank google some more if you don't like it.

Go wank yourself before you make assumptions about what companies I do or do not like.

Bad Troll.

Re:Proposed new name for Yahoo!

[zarmanto]

In response to: In other news, Yahoo! will be changing its name to "Realhoo!" That's exactly where my thoughts went too; I was always annoyed by the way RealPlayer puts up a dozen check boxes (some of which you need to scroll down to find) and forces you to opt-out of every single one -- which I always have, in those rare instances when I needed to install RealPlayer. Ironically, within the past couple of years I've kept my computer relatively Real-free, because the vast majority of sites which offer Real streams also offer alternative streams in Windows Media Player, QuickTime, or both. I would imagine that I'm not entirely alone in this. (Come to think of it, I don't believe I've heard much about Real in the news lately... perhaps that corroborates my theory?)

So it seems that the question which Yahoo must ask themselves is this: Does the revenue from all those adware related pop-ups (which I believe -- correct me if I'm wrong -- are consistently seeing fewer click-throughs) outweigh the potential revenue from people actually surfing to the Yahoo portal sites?

Re:More evil?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Yup. And this is what Excite did just before nose-diving into the ground.

"Don't be evil" and other corporate nonsense

[SuperBanana]

Trust us because we say our foundation is trust? I don't think so.

"Don't be evil" ring a bell? Everyone pretty much "believed" the head honcos at google when they declared that was the company's motto.

Dow's motto is "We Bring Good Things to Life", except they purchased Union Carbide after Union Carbide killed tens of thousands of Indian people when a chemical plant in Bhopal released methyl isocyanate. [google.com]

Last time I mentioned Bhopal [wikipedia.org] and Dow, someone said "hey, that was Union Carbide, not Dow! Dow just bought them!" Well- Dow management and shareholders didn't seem to have much trouble sleeping at night after buying Union Carbide for a song (Union Carbide after the disaster became next to worthless as a brand.) Dow pretty much turned into a industrial-disaster profiteer.

Meanwhile, Yahoo stamps their crap on Flickr

[Rocketship Underpant]

Yahoo's engineers and marketers have already had their first stab at ruining Flickr, the wonderful photo-sharing website. The simple, friendly, three-question signup that worked so well before has been turned into a ghastly Yahoo ID signup process that includes the usual corporate interrogation and other goofiness spread across multiple pages and redirects.

Just wait till the rest of Flickr gets the Yahoo treatment.

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/flickr_signup_f rom_human_to_droid_in_a_yahoo_moment.php [37signals.com]

Yahoo Owns Spyware Companies

[rAiNsT0rm]

Yahoo OWNS Intermix through Overture who has lost some massive court cases involving spyware. So this is no real surprise. Intermix was ordered to pay 7.5 Million in a seattle case. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/43894.html [technewsworld.com]

But they're trying to help!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo also insists it does business only with adware companies that adhere to best practices

and that its ongoing involvement in the industry has already boosted standards.

Can anyone tell me what exactly the standards are for spyware? Hm... slow performance, crashed programs, increased bloat, ... standards? bah!

Adware vs. spyware

[Alwin Henseler]

I'm sure this is explained elsewhere nicely, but IMHO what sets spyware apart from other crapware is the lack of user knowledge and approval.

A common scenario would be a user clicking 'Ok' on an EULA which somewhere, buried in a heap of legal speak, mentions "includes <insert favorite crapware here> from <insert favorite crapware company here>". Whatever happens next, that user did agree to installation of this crapware, and could have know about it before installing (if he/she would bother to read the EULA).

I guess what makes this legally a gray area is the 'bundling' aspect. If user agrees to install A, and B comes bundled with A, did user agree to install B as well, or not? What if B is regarded as an essential component of A (not as a separate item B)? What if B is one very small part of a large software suite A? Does it need mentioning at all in that case? How about software that upgrades itself to include new 'functionality'? Very tricky all this.

If not bundled (like installed through a browser vulnerability), it's not much different from installing a rootkit on someone else's machine. Without user approval, THAT is very much illegal where I live (comparable to cracking systems). YMMV, but ofcourse these things are very, very difficult to prove in court.

Maybe that Gator thingie of yours looked like spyware but did get mentioned in an EULA that users had to click through ('upgrading' it to adware)?

Zawodny's comments taken out of context

[tr3y]

Great article, it almost got the context of Zawodny's comments correct. In his post he was talking about the bundling of the Yahoo Search Toolbar with other Yahoo products. Adware was not mentioned once. http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/005121.htm l [zawodny.com]

Re:Here is the real issue...LEGALLY, what is Spywa

[ajs318]

Anything that grows in your garden, but that you did not plant is a weed. Anything on your computer that you did not install by an informed, deliberate action is illegally-installed software.

However, just because it's illegal, doesn't stop people doing it. Lots of people transport beneficial plant products across imaginary lines; this is against the law in many countries, but enough of them are getting away with it for it to be worthwhile.

Windows fanboys bitch about it being "complicated" or "awkward" to install software on GNU/Linux, but it is that way for a reason. Yes, you have to open an xterm and type something like apt-get install packagename. One little command. It downloads the software {from an independently-verified repository -- one more layer of safety}, installs it system-wide and updates the menus for all your window managers {if you use more than one}. And frankly, I don't see how this is any more counter-intuitive than having to click twice in rapid succession on an application icon to launch it .....

Re:Yahoo has been like this for some time

[Nullan D. Voyd]

Now they are using a new trick, or rather an old spammer's trick. They are allowing Fortune magazine to 'top post'. Usenet spammers have long spoofed their time stamp. Now Fortune does it, so that their 'news stories', which are little more than teasers, are always on top of their investment news feed. All it will take is a few more once legit sources to use this trick, and the feed will be worthless. Yes, I have complained, but neither Yahoo or Fortune are listening.