180 Solutions down for the count

180 Solutions attended the Antispyware conference. I know this, because in my notes for Part 3: The Money Game, I wrote:

180 got busted.

Now, far be it for me to suggest that 180 Solutions might have applied some of their (not inconsiderable) legal weight to CNET in light of how badly things went for them, but the "official" rundowns of the day's events seem to be strangely lacking in 180 high-fibre treats. Let's look at the evidence, shall we?

First off, upon registering on the Release 1.0 website to get my hands on some of the MP3 sessions, I was rather puzzled to find the below:

Session III: The Money Game: Business Viability and Revenue Models
Esther Dyson, editor, Release 1.0, CNET Networks (moderator)
Jeff McFadden, President and CEO, Claria
Ralph Terkowitz, ABS Capital
Ari Schwarz, Center for Democracty and Technology

Is it just me, or did 180 Solutions head-honcho Daniel Todd somehow manage to fall off the list? Oh well, probably a typo. Let's move onto the MP3 of the event...whoops, the section where he flew his flag seem to have slipped off the tape as well!

I've been checking for signs that someone reloaded the Matrix...Deja Vu, black cats, hot ladies in leather dominatrix costumes (though apparently I was staying in the wrong part of San Francisco to see that!)...but no, I'm fairly certain the guy was there. In fact, if you look closely, Jeff McFadden seems to have slipped off the list for his section, too. Conspiracy theory? Probably not, though I'm typing this from underneath some tin foil. And before "the man" comes to bust me, let's move on to what we've all been waiting for - the total ownage of 180 Solutions.

Background

Well, where to begin? A notorious string of affiliates (and a notorious lack of responsibility for the actions of those affiliates) ultimately drew us, moth-like, to the nightmare that was Spazbox. Multi-browser installs, rogue .Xpi files, tampered versions of 180 Solutions that claimed users had agreed to the install and a gigantic, rogue IRC Network...it was a hot potato all right. So hot, in fact, that it raised the ire of both myself and (especially) Wayne Porter, who (along with the rest of the X-Block team) systematically pulled apart Spazbox and put the heat on 180 Solutions in a way not seen since...well, since the last time a major Adware player got involved in something stupid. When we found out 180 would be at this conference, a number of us became very excited indeed. When the day came, would the Antispyware guys perform?

You bet.

The Battleground

Alex Eckelberry (President of Sunbelt Software) kicked things off, homing in on 180's affiliate tactic of messing with registry keys to make it look like the user agreed to the install. This came to light for them after someone connected to 180 wanted to be delisted.

Daniel: "Well, er, we're looking into ways we can make the protection better. If anyone here has any answers to how we can make the products more secure, then certainly..."

Alex: "Really, we can write you an application right now that fixes this problem, it's not difficult."

Daniel: "Oh, so you can write something that's completely uncrackable?"

Note that that's not what he said. A deflection, and a pretty poor one at that. Still, the line Alex responded with (about how a 14 year old could bypass 180's software) was pretty funny and got chuckles all round. But as you'll see, the 180 guy was rather reluctant to actually answer anything.

Next up - well, I'm not sure who it was. But they gave 180 a shuddering body blow all the same.

Mystery hero: "As we know, you bought CDT" (One of 180 Solutions' biggest distributors).

"In Canada, they registered "Click yes to continue" so that would appear on sites and people would think they had to actualy do that. That's deceptive! And you guys now own it! You even worked with them for two years before that.."

Daniel: "I dont think they distributed us with that."

Mystery Hero: "Yes you did! I have a video of it!"

"Yeah, I've got that too," Ben Edelman quickly added. Ben rocks.

No response, in amongst the gales of laughter. If ever the 180 guy was looking at the ceiling, hoping to see Batman crash through a skylight and whisk him to safety, it was now.

Unfortunately, there was no Batman. There wasn't even a skylight. Just another thunderous jab to the gut.

Step up to the plate, Ben "Homerun" Edelman. A while back, it was found that certain types of spyware would "hijack" certain pages with "competitor" pages offering similar products. This culminated in a series of popup adverts that did everything from display rogue products over the Pctools site, to displaying a fake shopping cart which would result in the customer purchasing a totally different product from a totally different website - cue consumer confusion and a loss of earnings for Pctools. This was discussed at great length, and it's best to listen to the MP3 to get the full flavour - however, the only part that need concern us is when the host (Esther Dyson) cut into Daniel Todd's jibber-jabber and asked him:

"Why dont you just say whether you think this is wrong or not"

A long pause.

"............................yes."

As you can see, he really had to think about it!

Esther: "How many of you were shocked by the installs we saw?"

(No hands up - surprise!)

"You're still living off your install base from a long time ago, so even if you clean up, you're still profiting from your more 'dubious' installs. So how about this?

Use your popup ads to educate, inform and engage in a public awareness / education campaign to say, 'You have our stuff onboard, this is what it does, these are the benefits, this is how you remove it. Please opt in to keep it onboard. How about it?"

A stunned silence fell over the assembled crowd at this proposed idea. If ever an idea could be likened to a knife inbetween the floating ribs, this was it. Imagine all those Ad networks saying "We suck! We're sorry! Please don't hate us," carried across their popups. Hell, I'd infect my PC just to see it!

However, the panel response was vague and (in one case) total nonsense.

All Daniel Todd could muster was a bewildered, "Er - soon?" and as for Claria's Jeff McFadden, he began a surreal ramble, stating "Wouldn't it be wrong if antispyware tools started removing programs you wanted to keep but not the adware? And wouldn't it be wrong if those tools killed off valid applications and not the spyware?" No doubt he penned this crazy missive (which lasted a good four or five minutes - yep there was more) whilst singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" and waving the Red, White and Blue for all to see. His true intentions came to light when he said he was annoyed that some antispyware tools removed HIS garbage, but not the Adware on his daughter's PC that kept serving adverts.

Ah-hah! You'll bitch and moan when your OWN profit stream is killed off, but your competitors are fair game? That sounds about right. Double standards for all. And what the Hell is your daughter doing running Claria products? What possible reason could she have for this?

You're comfortable making money from your own daughter?

Is it just me feeling a sense of creeping, shuddering disgust that won't go away?

I'll leave the last word to Wayne Porter, who steamrolled Daniel with a red-hot blast that (of course) wasn't responded to in any way, but summed up the thoughts of every antispyware figure in the room. If ever there was a speech that made me want to dress all in black, reform Public Enemy and go on a rampage, this was it. Feel the burn - Daniel Todd certainly did...

Wayne Porter: "How long do we have to wait? There's not one company that doesn't have a dark history, didn't do a bad deal, or never slid deceptively into people's machines. I know from the thousands of emails we get at Spyware Guide. I hear Adware companies telling me, 'we're trying to reform, we're trying to do things the right way, trying to develop a relationship with our consumer'...but there's the problem - there's no relationship. There's no fanbase. There's no loyalty. My question is - why should I look the other way? Why should I wipe the slate clean for you guys? It's like Kindergarten.

Why should we trust you?