April 27th, 2005
Rogues are easy to spot
I was sent some interesting screenshots of pop-up advertisements for antispyware apps delivered via 180Search. The pop-ups were triggered at various Web sites, including PC-Tools, maker of Spyware Doctor, Google, and even Download.com. I detect various conflicts of interest. First, what legitimate antispyware app would use spyware to advertise itself? The ones that came up in the advertisements were PestBot, Privacy Defender, and The Shield. The first two are listed on the Spyware Warrior’s Rogue Antispyware Products site. Also, The Shield and Privacy Defender are made by the same company, some questionable outfit called PCSecurityShield. I really hate companies like these. They probably don’t code their own software, instead licensing some code and using scare tactics to sell a few copies. How can the people behind these companies sleep at night?
Okay, enough of that particular rant. The other conflict of interest would be in 180Search serving up advertisements for antispyware tools. Unless these tools don’t detect 180Search, which is probably more likely. I’m not going to bother testing them because, frankly, you can tell by their advertising tactics they are no good.
