Teenagers used to push Zango on Myspace?

Wouldn't it be nice if someone found a network of websites apparently designed to do nothing else but spread Adware around Myspace? Not only that, but get the innocent end-users themselves to do the job of pushing that Adware for the guy making all the money, without informing them of the Adware's presence in the first place?

Well, I was rattling around Myspace the other day, and had the sudden urge to start searching for Adware companies. Stranger things have happened at sea, right? Direct Revenue....nope. Ysbweb....nope. Media-Motor, Command Service, Spyfalcon? Nope, nope, nope. But guess what? There was one bunch of happy campers I knew I could rely on to crash the party. Make way for...

....Zango!

Sure enough, I was surprised to find 2 profiles called "Zango". Both created on the same day and at the same time, one pushed a toolbar and programs designed to "protect kids from predators".

The other? Well, imagine the scene...you see this profile floating round in Myspace, decide to visit it and...


...a popup launches from the Myspace page, prompting you to accept a licence to play a videofile. If you do, you'll be installing the Zango Search Assistant and Toolbar. Of course, in this scenario, the licence agreement makes little sense to the user. It's just some random popup, right? If you saw this appear from a "regular" site that installs Zango Adware, then you'd at least have to click a button to bring up the licence prompt. You could argue that you knew what you were getting into.

Here? On Myspace?

The average user is probably going to assume it's "from Tom", and as such is perfectly safe and endorsed by Myspace. A Myspace feature or something, yes? They don't know it's being popped up via someone gaming the Adware system (again).

How is it done this time?

Well, it's pretty simple - pasting the code for the moviefile into the Myspace profile and having it autoplay when you visit the page, is enough to have the licence prompt appear. Easy as pie.

Now, let's think about the core audience here - I have no idea what the concrete figures are like, but Myspace is (or was) all about the kids, right? Minimum age is now 14, their "safety tips" page links to a bunch of sites called Safeteens, Webwisekids and Netsmartz. Browse around randomly and it's confirmed. Kids, kids, kids.

Which just makes the pre-ticked checkbox for the Zango installer (18 or over) even more ironic and useless than it already is when applied to a landscape like this. Of course, videofiles that launch Adware aren't a new thing - though creating a distribution method like this is pretty inventive.

But wait! Let's not drop the "won't somebody please think of the children" angle yet. Let's delve into the murky world of who is pimping these things. Step up, Myspacegraphichelp.

A quick scout of the site reveals it to be (what I consider) aimed at kids, or at least, surfers of a younger nature. Yet this particular page signals the arrival of a crushing wave of Zango installs (25 videos are on that one page alone!) Even better, each one proclaims "Add this content to your page!" No doubt eager Myspace users, desperate to have some "killer countent" on their sites will eagerly cut and paste this code onto their profiles, unaware that to play these things, you have to install Zango Adware on the viewer's PC.

Oh look, no mention on that page whatsoever that you'll be offering up Adware in return for putting these videos on your site. Congratulations.

But wait! It gets better. Let's look at his "Partner Sites".

"Myspace Videos", they call it. I call it, another site that's pushing a boatload of Zango with no disclosure that the users running this code will be installing Adware from their page.

"Lol-pages"? In my opinion, the "lols" are few and far between, as it even attempts to install Zango onto the vistor's PC into the bargain!

And on it goes....EverythingMyspace, MyspaceGlitters, LoserAlliance, Deltox, Videocodelab...all of them are heaving with these things, urging you to splatter what seems like hundreds of videos onto your profile.

I'm not providing any "live links" to these sites, because many of them popped up adverts for things such as Errorsafe - not good.

In all cases, I didn't see one site actually mention the fact that in return for these things, you'd be pimping Zango. I just can't see how this is right, but then it's all about the money, yes?

At any rate, the situation is this - set up an affiliate deal with Zango, then systematically create a network of Myspace-themed websites designed to entice users into placing your files onto their Myspace sites. After all, why go to all the trouble of pimping your own vids when you can have random teenagers on Myspace do it for you? Talk about an all time low - an innovative method of distribution, I'll give you that. But it leaves a sour taste in the mouth, all the same.

Now, Myspace doesn't allow you to accept payment from a "third person" in return for you providing any "commercial activity" on or through the Myspace system on behalf of that third-party entity, such as "placing commercial content on your profile".

I'm almost certain what's going on here is against the Terms of Service in any case, but hey - I have Tom on my Friends List.

Maybe I'll ask him...!

/ Addendum: If you saw this article at ITNews, you'll now know the full story here - and it's pretty amazing. It wasn't just some random guy who created those profiles on Myspace...it was apparently someone from 180 Solutions / CDT / Zango themselves. Quote:

The profiles were a mistake, countered a Zango spokesman Monday. According to Zango's Steve Stratz, the two spotted by Boyd were created by a company developer based in its Montreal office......Those two test accounts were actually created by one of our developers who was exploring possible opportunities, but he didn't realise it was Zango business practice not to target MySpace," said Stratz. "He should not have been doing this, and we want to tell MySpace that we didn't mean to target them." The developer, said Stratz, would soon be deleting the profiles.

....well, the profiles still exist but the movies themselves have gone. I wouldn't start organising a victory parade as Zango have made it clear they're not responsible for "policing the sharing of their content", so here we have a major contradiction. On the one hand, they're saying "please Myspace, don't be mad. We didn't mean to break your rules and we agree, our movies should not be on Myspace".

On the other hand, they're also saying that "we're not responsible for policing people pushing our software in this way", so surely the end result will eventually be....more of these moviefiles on Myspace?

Is it just me, or does this not make sense?

Also, from the article:

Zango, however, countered that its license agreement "could not be any clearer" and that it would be obvious to anyone that the download was not originating with MySpace.

Wait...so, we're supposed to accept that kids will know where this is coming from due to the licence agreement being displayed. But what about the Myspace Terms and Conditions displayed when you sign up? Did this employee not take note of those when he decided to do his little experiement? This seems to be another contradiction to me. People must take note of Terms and Conditions, but only when it suits them?

No thanks.

More coverage: SCMagazine Threat Chaos Spyware Confidential Techdirt Security Pro News Realtechnews Digg Slashdot BoingBoing