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180Solutions: The Surprise Friends in Your Closet
First I’ll take a brief moment to recap my latest adventures in healthcare. If you find my healthcare trials a bore skip to paragraph three. I have found it more of a time savings procedure to do it via blog than to send out dozens of individual e-mails. In my last entry I talked about how I was preparing for my sleep deprived EEG. The good news is I had the EEG- the bad news is I failed.
This, in short, means I lose my driver’s license for six months and I am at risk for more seizures. It comes as quite a shock when you are my age to have news like that handed to you. I have begun the trial and error process of going through medications to control the condition and a new array of tests are planned to see if the condition is linked to something terminal. My first experiment was this weekend and the medication made me so sick I was almost hospitalized from anaphylactic shock. I can hope to return to work and normalcy soon and have learned, yet again, don’t take your health for granted.
In today’s blog installment I turn your attention to the latest activity in the 180Solutions camp. Many of you may know the name as I have covered them several times in the past and they hit my pet peeve by targeting children via search campaigns at Overture and Google.
According to MediaPost
ADWARE COMPANY 180SOLUTIONS MONDAY BEGAN a campaign to inform all consumers who receive adware from the company that they have ad-serving software installed on their computers. For the initiative, 180solutions intends to serve all adware recipients pop-ups telling them that they have 180search Assistant or Zango Search Assistant installed on their desktops. The pop-ups–which will inform customers that they receive two to three ads a day in exchange for free content–also will contain uninstall instructions.
The company expects to reach all 20 million of its adware recipients by the end of July, said Sean Sundwall, 180solutions’ director of public communications.
Right off the bat I see a number of “questionable statements” based on what I have seen and what they present. For example the ad frequency statements are very misleading. I am not sure how they calculate their average, but in our testing there were alot more pop-ups shown on the PC which had the program installed. Furthermore, 180Solutions never refers to them as popup ads in their warning box!
My biggest gripe is that if the program was installed on a system using stealth tactics or security holes then the user is NOT receiving value-added content or free games as part of the trade-off- they are simply getting ads.
I would add that I find the whole idea of communicating to users that have software on their machine in conditions where it was stealth installed, using popup ads to be completely without taste and still a violation of security protocols and basic ethics. If you are got unto a machine using stealth you have NO BUSINESS talking to people. You need to be removing that installation without delay.
Let me give a “real world” analogy. I sneak into your house and hide in your closet. I stay there for several days and then one day I start communicating to you by writing messages on the mirror using some of your lipstick. Surprise!
You didn’t know how I get into your property but I will agree to clean your closet once a week if you let me stay there and write messages on your mirror every so often. Actually that tradeoff might be interesting to me, I might let people live in my closet if they agreed to do house chores in exchange for writing on a mirror, but I would STILL demand to meet them first. I don’t want just anyone living in my closet and it is really hard to trust anyone who sneaks in without permission! Where I grew up the Appalachian mountains if you snuck into someone’s home without their permission you ran a good chance of getting shot with a high calibre weapon.
While writing this piece Eric Howes, another noted researcher, sent over several URL’s of supplemental reading and low and behold I find Ben Edelman, (among others), had already dissected 180Solutions and left a steaming crater where their campaign used to be. Ben notes some of the other problems I had spotted and finds many more!
What Passes for “Consent” at 180Solutions. Note the following seven claims Ben makes:
1. 180’s notification screen fails to affirmatively state what 180 does — its popups or its privacy effects. 180’s first two sentences disclose that something called “180search Assistant” is installed, and that it will show “ads.” But nowhere does 180 disclose that the ads appear in popups — an advertising format known to be particularly objectionable, and therefore particularly important to bring to users’ attention if users are to offer genuine consent. In addition, nowhere does 180 disclose the important privacy effects of installing 180 software — that 180 will track what web sites users visit, and send much of this information to its servers. The importance of these omissions can’t be overstated: If 180 fails to disclose what users are purportedly accepting, no valid “consent” can result.
2. 180 claims to “giv[e] you free access to search tools, software and entertainment sites.” This claim is false, in that for many users 180 provides no such thing. Consider a user who receives 180 software without notice or consent. 180 might allow access to special entertainment sites that are otherwise unavailable. But this ability is of no benefit if users don’t know they have 180, didn’t ask for 180, aren’t told what special sites they can access, and in any event don’t want to access such sites.
3. 180 claims to show “approximately 2-3 highly targeted ads per day.” This claim is false, in that many users will receive many more ads per day. Perhaps an average user gets only a few ads per day, when averaging includes all the users who don’t use their PCs on many days, or who don’t use their web browsers. But in even limited web browsing, I consistently receive far more than three 180 ads per day.
4. 180 inexplicably claims that “user consent is required before 180search Assistant can be installed.” This claim is absolutely false. 180 is often installed without any consent at all. See videos on my site (1, 2, 3) (dozens more on file). 180’s own staff have repeatedly admitted that nonconsensual installations occur (1, 2, 3, 4). After these many admissions, I don’t understand how 180 can now argue that users have “consent[ed]” to its installation. Indeed, the entire premise of 180’s re-notification program is to make up for prior nonconsensual installations!
5. 180 claims that “all 180search Assistant ads are labeled…” This is false. As 180 staff have previously admitted, advertisements with redirects erase 180’s ad labeling.
6. 180 claims that “the user must be 18 or over to download.” Again, false. In fact, 180 software is widely offered on kids sites, where users are unlikely to be over 18. (Example.) Some 180’s installations mention a requirement of user age, but this provision is typically exceptionally hard to find. For example, in one screensaver I tested today, the user-age provision was on page 18 of 180’s license, in the next-to-last paragraph, captioned “Miscellaneous.” (Screenshot.)
7. 180 concludes by claiming that “You can easily remove the 180search Assistant … using ‘Add or Remove Programs’” False. The removal isn’t “easy,” for at least two reasons.
Read the entire write-up for more incredibly fun and supporting evidence.
Other write-ups appearing in the blogosphere:
180 Solutions Get with The Program via VitalSecurity.org:
180 Solutions Changes Faces from SpywareWarrior.com
180 Proposes, Edelman Disposes via Sunbelt Blog.
I will clock more as they come in. Bloggers may trackback by pinging this URL: http://www.revenews.com/MT/mt-tb.cgi/728
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