It was brought to our attention yesterday that a completely unacceptable installation of our software was occurring on a popular crack site. First, we absolutely prohibit our partners from distributing our software on such sites. This is a terminable offense. Second, we categorically require every partner to gain proper consent from the end user prior to every installation of our software. Not doing so is also a terminable offense.

Zealots are often quick to accuse “adware” companies of illegitimate software installations and deceptive distribution practices. What we’ve yet to see any of them do is be equally critical of the anti-spyware scanning application companies who are routinely deceptive in their labeling and classifications of some downloadable software, including our own.

We are optimistic with today’s announcement of the TRUSTe “Trusted Download Certification Program,” which should finally create meaningful industry standards. Backed by some of the biggest consumer-facing software companies in the world, the stringent (yet fair) criteria announced today should finally create a clear differentiation between legitimate and nefarious programs. The former will survive. Bad actors will not.

Based on early reports, it would appear the TRUSTe Certification Program represents the first meaningful industry standards backed by some of the biggest consumer-facing software companies in the world.

In a seminar titled, “Search Beyond Direct Marketing” Joe Pilotta from BigResearch and an analyst from Piper Jaffrey cited some global market stats/projections and the implications for the current and future search marketing industry...

AdTech day two was filled with more meetings, presentations and impromptu interactions. Reflecting on conversations with customers and prospects from yesterday and today fall into three buckets...

What do you get when you combine 200 exhibitors, 42 workshops, 7 keynote addresses and 8500 pre-registered attendees? The world’s largest interactive conference: AdTech 2005. Back in 1995 when AdTech was first launched, discussion among exhibitors and conference attendees speculated on whether or not the Internet would be around in 10 years...

A couple of days ago, Bill Day from WhenU had a very thoughtful and largely helpful piece in iMedia Connection about the importance of obtaining permission from consumers before doing just about anything. As we said in our last blog, ad relevance is a huge issue and we lead the industry in providing our customers with ads truly relevant and additive to their online search experience.

Yesterday, the FBI and US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles announced the indictment and arrest of 20-year-old Jeanson James Ancheta, of Downey, CA, on federal charges for profiting from the use of botnets. From the press release: “Ancheta was indicted yesterday in two separate conspiracies, as well as substantive charges of attempting to cause damage to protected computers, causing damage to computers used by the federal government in national defense, accessing protected computers without authorization to commit fraud and money laundering. . . . The second conspiracy outlined in the indictment alleges that Ancheta caused adware to be downloaded onto the infected computers that were part of his botnet armies. To do this, Ancheta allegedly directed the compromised computers to other computer servers he controlled where adware he had modified would surreptitiously install onto the infected computers.”

After months of working directly and proactively with the FBI and indirectly (through the FBI) with Dutch authorities, we were able to announce today that critical evidence provided by us has resulted in the continued pretrial detainment of an individual in the Netherlands who controlled a massive botnet and used it, or part of it, to distribute our software and who knows what else. While we are still somewhat constrained from talking about all the nitty gritty details, we thought it would be interesting to provide a bit more color to the whole story.

So in the original post, ads were deemed subtractive to overall value proposition for adware. We called it “ad annoyance” and it reduced the eventual perceived value of the “adware” proposition. But we asked the question can you get to a point where the ads themselves add to the value proposition of the so called adware experience? You will be shocked to know that we think it can.