180 Solutions: My fanatical response

Well, the gloves are off! After a long time of using the label "zealot" to describe people who have issues with renegade installs, 180 Solutions are finally naming names - not only is Alex Eckelberry, President of Sunbelt one such zealot, but I win the Internets, as in their latest blog they love me so much, they wrote a whole piece about me and called me a fanatic!

Oh, boy - do I get a badge? Or maybe a hat? Who knows - but let's address the points raised...

Background: 180 Solutions. They rely on an affiliate model to have their software installed on PCs. A lot of times, like most who use affiliate models, it all goes pear-shaped, and then you get people like me complaining about it. Over the past year, we have seen a wide variety of installs performed - everything from IM hijacks, to bundles with rootkits, installs on child porn sites, whacked-out BitTorrent bundles and much more besides.

Here's a list of said installs, specifically relating to 180.

Now let's address your points raised:

180 Solutions: For the longest time, Paperghost and others have taken great pleasure in making noise about unauthorized installations of our software by rogue distributors guilty of defrauding us and irritating our users (potential and actual)

Not true. I take no "pleasure" in finding renegade installs still taking place. As for making "noise", when it goes wrong, are you saying that we should not comment on it? Are you saying that we should not be allowed to voice an opinion?

That's rich, considering your blog employs the language of the wooden tongue, and doesn't even allow people to post comments. You can send me a trackback and comment on my site, but I can't leave a message on yours? I don't even know who writes the 180 Blog.

180 Solutions: Paperghost and other fanatics, after months and months of saying we don’t provide any content in exchange for showing ads..

Okay - show me one sentence - ONE SENTENCE - where I have ever......EVER....said, and I quote:

180 Solutions don't provide any content in exchange for showing ads.

That's odd, considering I'm always saying I have no issues with people installing your software. I merely object to rogue installs. Go figure.

180 Solutions: We are called out as evil for allowing the webmaster of the amazingracist.net to offer our search software to his customers as a way to monetize his content. (For the record, "The Amazing Racist" is a comedy routine done by Ari-Shaffir, a Jewish would-be comedian". Mr Shaffir portrays himself as a "blatant racist" in order to "film people's reactions." Wikipedia's entry on Mr Shaffir is linked here.)

The thing you should not lose sight of here - is that racist humour, is still racist.

And who is likely to find it funny - a racist, or a non-racist? Does Ari become any more valid because he has a page on Wikipedia? That article is a poor excuse for a PR Stub - he probably created it himself. We're using Wikipedia vanity pages to bolster your argument?

Racist humour is immediately objectionable, and even more so online, because it quite often either serves as a front for groups such as the KKK, or helps them to encourage new member recruitment on their underground websites. Where it leads from there is anyone's guess, though it shouldn't be too hard to take a stab at it. And now, a quote of my own:

As such, it is suggested that there are integral links between extreme hatred and dehumanizing, violent humour.

An interesting read. I suggest you check it out.

As for me, I'm a fanatic because I object to 180's involvement with this site? Well, I have Black and Indian members of family scattered across the globe, and closer to home. Are you telling me I'm not allowed to express my immediate and total revulsion, when I happen to work on the exact flip side industry of the one you work in?

Go figure.

180 Solutions: Why aren’t these fanatics writing blogs about Comedy Central’s support of South Park, a show that routinely mocks religions, races, and disabilities? Because they have set up a different set of rules that 180solutions should abide by…a set of rules that makes it so the fanatics don’t have to change the subject.

Nope - we just don't work in those fields, and so our involvement would have little to no impact. What a crazy statement. I have some pull and some clout in Antispyware, because that's what I do. If I write a letter to Comedy Central, it's more likely to go in the bin than on the wall. There are plenty of anti-South Park groups out there - go join one.

There aren't quite as many sites commenting on Spy/Ad/Malware though, so I guess I won't be moving into TV Journalism just yet. And anyway, all my time is taken with renegade installs. I haven't got time to police the television networks, the online channels are bad enough ;)

If you don't want to pull the connection to the Amazing Racist, that's entirely your choice - if there's nothing to worry about, you shouldn't mind people like me complaining about it.

Just don't be surprised if nobody else bar the guy who runs the site and the racists who find it funny agree with you.