Q: What’s the difference between a fanatic and a zealot? A: A zealot can’t change his mind. A fanatic can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. ~ Winston Churchill. We indeed love Winston Churchill.

Crack open the bubbly because it’s official...today we began rolling out the second set of major enhancements to our search assistant applications. Specifically, today’s release features what we call the “Closed Loop System” (CLS), a built-in mechanism that makes it much easier for consumers to report unapproved installations of our software. As if that’s not big enough news, we also announced today that we will end distribution of the 180search Assistant by the end of the year and will replace it with our new Seekmo Search Assistant.

We’d like to thank the folks at Sunbelt for helping us out a bit on the PR front today. They beat us to the punch in announcing a great service being offered by one of our new partners, YouSendIt, and the fact that it’s supported by Zango Search Assistant...

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.