Fergie's Tech Blog

180Solutions using X-rated .torrents to spread adware?

Om Malik posts in his Broadband Blog:

The ever vigilant Dave Methvin, Chief Techology Officer, PC Pitstop has discovered that 180 Solutions might be using BitTorrent to spread their evil spyware/adware seed. Folks at Vital Security have confirmed the findings as well with images. According to his investigations, the nefarious stuff comes packaged in an adult-oriented video torrent. Click the file, and a dialog appears which is basically a bunch of bullshit. Methvin says scroll down this first screen and you will see the text that tells you that

the program installs the 180Search Assistant from 180Solutions, Golden Retriever from ShopAtHomeSelect, and Internet Optimizer from Avenue Media. The license text shown to the user only has links to the 180Solutions license; for the others it just mentions that they are installed but says nothing about their license terms.

Ironic because 180 Solutions had promised not to bundle other people’s shit with its own!

posted by Fergie @ 7/10/2005 04:21:00 PM