Fergie's Tech Blog

Ben Edelman: How Vonage Funds Spyware

I ought to be a Vonage enthusiast. I support Vonage's efforts to protect network neutrality. I applaud their flexible voice over IP service and their efforts to compete with incumbent phone companies. I'm even a VoIP customer (albeit using a competitor's service).

But instead of praising Vonage, I have to criticize them -- not for their core business (which seems robust) or for their customer service (which others have repeatedly criticized), but for their reckless advertising practices. Vonage spends huge amounts on advertising -- more than $20 million per month. (source) Unfortunately, among this spending is widespread and substantial spyware-delivered advertising.

For years, my manual and automated testing have documented Vonage ads appearing in all the major spyware programs. Now that Vonage has completed its IPO -- itself promoted as a way to raise more money to buy more advertising -- this page presents twelve recent examples of Vonage ads appearing in spyware.

posted by Fergie @ 7/17/2006 10:19:00 PM