Fergie's Tech Blog

Adware giant Direct Revenue interview with Newsweek

Brad Stone writes in his weekly Newsweek column "Plain Text":

Direct Revenue was once one of the least understood companies on the Internet. Like its rivals 180solutions and Claria Corp., its advertising software sat on millions of computers, spawning incessant pop-up ads to users who often had no idea how their computers ever caught the adware bug in the first place. But since a NEWSWEEK story about Direct Revenue in December 2004, the venture-backed New York City advertising startup has continued to make news—not all of it good. In early April, Chicago attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging that its pop-ups damage computers. Later that month, the company’s new advertising client, “Aurora,” hit the Internet, sending another wave of annoyed Internet users to customer help bulletin boards on the Web looking for ways to remove the ad-spewing software from their infected PCs.

In May, Direct Revenue took a step to shake itself up. It hired a new CEO, Paris-born Jean-Philippe Maheu, who claimed to see a bright future for adware companies and said he intended to improve their visibility and relationship with Internet users. Maheu was in San Francisco this month, speaking to potential investors at the annual RBC Capital Markets Conference. When NEWSWEEK asked to interview the new CEO, a Direct Revenue representative at first declined, citing our unflattering earlier article. But soon afterward, Maheu got in touch himself and offered to meet for a coffee. “Things are changing very fast in the online advertising industry,” he says. “There is an opportunity to transform the company.” NEWSWEEK’s Silicon Valley correspondent, Brad Stone, spoke with Jean-Philippe Maheu.

posted by Fergie @ 8/17/2005 09:56:00 AM