Lavasoft leaves ASAP, COAST crashes and burns

That's right - it's all (to coin a phrase) "going off". There's been more excitement with security sites recently than you can shake a stick at, and now in one fell swoop, COAST have fell to bits and (in an unrelated event) Lavasoft have suddenly found themselves delisted from ASAP (an alliance of profit / non-profit websites dedicated to cleaning infected PCs).

How did this happen? Well, Lavasoft have always been a touch, er, OTT?...with regards the way they have treated both their customers and the volunteers on their forums. For one thing, they seem to have a forum policy that involves not recommending tools to prevent re-infection. This seems to have changed somewhat recently, though it's a bit of an irrelevant point now. For another, they insist on treating the people who give their time freely like dirt, and imagine their surprise when viewing the forum, to be met with the rather lame message that

"The Lavasoft support forums are off line temporarily due to a software upgrade."

Oh, well, that's okay then. No private warning to mods / admins, or thanks to the people who devoted their time or anything else - just slung in the trashcan with Oscar the Grouch. Quite frankly, this kind of thing has been going on for some time with certain Vendors who are a part of ASAP, and it has clearly gotten worse over time. No site should be treated "differently" just because they happen to be a big player - if they break the rules, make them pay and that's what's happened here, at least for now.

There is a chance they may return to ASAP - however, I think it's highly unlikely that any of the previous volunteers will want to return to the fold. What's happened makes me sick and I had no involvement with Lavasoft, so who knows what the people affected are feeling like right now.

As for COAST, they were founded in 2003 as a nonprofit group of anti-spyware companies to help establish industry-binding guidelines defining spyware, and a code of ethics surrounding the distribution of desktop software. It all went pear-shaped in February when Webroot abandoned the sinking ship, due to a raft of Spyware makers suddenly joining the consortium (no, I don't quite understand that one either).

Two months later, the group has left the building (much like Elvis, but without the Spandex and mega-buckets of Cola).

“Coast has ceased operations, and this Web site will be taken down permanently on April 15, 2005,” according to a notice posted to the group’s Web site.

I'd like to say I'm sorry to see it go, but, well, I'm not. C'est la vie, Adieu, Bon Voyage, Je voudrais etre baguette.