180Solutions and Deceptive Installs, Again

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Once again 180Solutions is in the news, and, as usual, it involves deceptive install practices. The Center for Democracy and Technology, CDT, has asked the FTC to stop 180Solutions from allowing “deceptive and unfair” methods in distributing products that generate online pop-up ads, saying that 180 has responded to it’s complaints, but they have only made minor improvements.

“While they were willing to root out individual cases as we brought them to their attention, we were getting new complaints about new bad installations at an almost equal rate,” said David McGuire, a CDT spokesman. “It seems their business model is just flawed.”

Many anti-spyware vendors flag 180solutions products as “adware,” complaining that users aren’t always made aware of installations though the company asserts that user consent is required. The CDT said 180solutions isn’t aggressive enough about policing rogue distribution partners.

According to the CDT, people who visit a personal Web site hosted for free by CJB are told to expect advertising but don’t understand that it involves a program that “runs continuously and tracks everything that the user does online” in order to better target ads.

And the CDT told the FTC that 180solutions has “remained brazenly reckless in its efforts to get its software on users’ computers.” The CDT, a Washington, D.C.-based civil-liberties group that has increasingly focused its attention on spyware and adware, seeks injunctions and penalties through the FTC. Source: Yahoo.

We Say: SOS. A couple phrases can be used there; Same ol Situation is one of them. More of the same from 180Solutions, same old installation techniques and the same old spin. Let’s hope the FTC decides to do something, since there is so much evidence floating around, one would think it wouldn’t be too hard.