directrevenue

ZDNet Resources

• sort by:
• Relevance
• Date
• Popularity

Notorious spyware purveyor shuts down

Less than a year after successfully negotiating a US$1.5 million wrist-slap to to settle charges that it used sneaky tactics to install spyware on millions of computers, DirectRevenue also known as Best Offers has shut down operations. The notorious spyware vendor, reviled for shady installation practices,...

Tags: DirectRevenue, Spyware Purveyor, Spyware, Spyware, Adware & Malware, Cyberthreats, Viruses And Worms, Security, Ryan Naraine

Blog posts 2007-10-24

Apparently crime does pay

The FTC has settled with evil Adware company DirectRevenue for $1.5 million dollars via Internetnews. The outrageous part of this story is that this leaves DirectRevenue about $20 million dollars that it made from infecting computers around the world with their crappy malware, disguised as screensavers, games, and utilities. These...

Tags: Web 2.0, News, Spam

Blog posts 2007-02-19

DirectRevenue's dirty money

DirectRevenue's dirty moneyWhat about Google?How the heck did they escape your trained editorial investigative eye. Would think your readers would like to know that this company that espouses "Do No Evil" in their company principles is a customer at Direct Revenueyes they paidout _millions_So where does there money come...

Tags: dirty money, DirectRevenue

Discussion threads 2006-04-12

DirectRevenue's dirty money

I wrote about DirectRevenue's dirty laundry and summarized some of the findings from the court documents from the NY State Attorney General's lawsuit against DirectRevenue. All of the documents are posted at Ben Edelman's site here with his comments. DirectRevenue's finances are most interesting -- they were making tons...

Tags: DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2006-04-12

DirectRevenue's dirty laundry is out of the closet and does it ever stink

Two days ago DirectRevenue was hit with a lawsuit by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The 76 page Affirmation of Justin Brookman PDF outlined the outrageous practices of DirectRevenue including evidence of their knowledge that the software was being installed without user consent, evidence showing DirectRevenue was closely...

Tags: DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2006-04-06

Another bad day for DirectRevenue - lawsuit by NY State AG

Another bad day for DirectRevenue - lawsuit by NY State AGSpitzer - Uh Oh, they are in trouble nowThis guy means business and he has taken a lot of bad guys to the woodshed. Go Spitzer, Go!

Tags: NY State AG, DirectRevenue, Spitzer

Discussion threads 2006-04-04

Another bad day for DirectRevenue - lawsuit by NY State AG

Another lawsuit against DirectRevenue, announced today by the New York State Attorney General's office. From the press release:The suit against the Direct Revenue company seeks a court order enjoining the firm from secretly installing spyware or sending ads through already-installed spyware. The suit also asks the court to compel the...

Tags: DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2006-04-04

DirectRevenue settles class action lawsuit

DirectRevenue settles class action lawsuitMessage has been deleted.clarificationHi, Suzi:In a note to me this afternoon, David Fish (of The Collins Law Firm, P.C.) wished to make something very clear regarding DirectRevenue’s control over distributors. That being… "One of the main reasons that we agreed to the settlement relates to...

Tags: Litigation, E-mail, class action, DirectRevenue

Discussion threads 2006-03-13

DirectRevenue settles class action lawsuit

Announced today -- adware company DirectRevenue has settled the lawsuit brought last April as a class action in the state of Illinois. DirectRevenue has been under fire for its installation through exploits, making its software next to impossible to remove by usual methods, bundling adware/spyware, using deceptive business practices....

Tags: DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2006-03-13

Judge rules in class action against Direct Revenue

I've been following the lawsuit filed against Direct Revenue in April. (The PDF document of the complaint can be seen here.) Excerpt: "A class action lawsuit claims that the Defendants are involved in installing “spyware” on millions of computers without the computer owners’ consent, utilizing it to track...

Tags: computer, Direct-Revenue, Direct Revenue

Blog posts 2005-08-31

Adware on Bittorrent

Adware distributors have seeded the Bittorrent network with their wares, calling into question adware makers claims of clamping down on affiliates. Many different types of files get downloaded over Bittorrent, from Linux distributions to copyright infringing media files. Now, a few of the latter have included adware from DirectRevenue and...

Tags: adware, DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2005-06-17

A more secure IE

Microsoft showed its interest in stopping spyware by buying Giant Antispyware, then releasing the software under its own brand. Now, the company announced it will make the next generation of its browser less vulnerable to drive-by spyware downloads. Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) will not allow the kinds of stealth installs...

Tags: Spyware, adware & malware, Cyberthreats, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Web browsers, Viruses and worms, SECURITY, spyware, DirectRevenue, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Longhorn

Blog posts 2005-06-14

DirectRevenue attempts reform

DirectRevenue attempts reformIt's a matter of Trust..Yeah, I got that "Nail.exe" on a user's computer. Glad to know where it came from now. I had to get it out of the filesystem and registry. Ididots - the LAST person I will give my credit card number to, is some company...

Tags: Sales channel, Financial services, credit card number, credit card, DirectRevenue

Discussion threads 2005-06-09

DirectRevenue attempts reform

As reported at Spyware Warrior, DirectRevenue has begun its reform effort, releasing a new version of its software. And according to forum posts around the Internet, this new version is causing unwanted pop-up advertisements and slowing down computers. The specific program names that keep coming up are nail.exe, aurora.exe, and...

Tags: DirectRevenue

Blog posts 2005-05-12

Additional Resources

Direct Revenue plotted to hijack your computer

Direct Revenue plotted to hijack your computerVonageIf Vonage is still actually using them, then karma is coming back to haunt Vonage after it's disastrous IPO..... Is there a complete list of current companies using this company? I really hate companies like these and would like to join any...

Tags: PRODUCTIVITY, Cyberthreats, SECURITY, Viruses and worms, computer, Direct Revenue, HERE IS

Discussion threads 2006-07-07

Click Fraud

I find it ironic that advertisers are bitter about hackers’ use of bots and other tricky techniques to defraud them by clicking on either their banner ads or Google keywords. Where were the complaints when spammers promoted their products via mass mailings to millions of totally...

Tags: Ron

Blog posts 2006-06-15

StopBadware.org issues first reports

StopBadware.org, the newest anti-spyware group on the scene, promised to name the bad guys and today they issued the first set of reports on 4 badware pushers that consumers should avoid. StopBadware reported on 4 applications: Kazaa, SpyAxe, Waterfalls 3, and MediaPipe. Each report details the objectionable behavior of...

Tags: StopBadware, Spyaxe, Kazaa

Blog posts 2006-03-22

180solutions wrap up

Last week 180solutions was in the news again due to another nonconsensual installation discovered and blogged by Ben Edelman. I wrote about it here and here but didn't get a chance due to traveling again to blog the rest of the story. 180 blogged their "mea culpa" admitting the first...

Tags: 180Solutions

Blog posts 2006-02-27

Lawsuit against Zone Labs dropped by 180solutions

Readers might remember about two months ago, adware company 180solutions filed a lawsuit against security vendor Zone Labs for labeling 180's software as "high risk" and reporting that it monitors and records keystrokes. Now 180solutions has dropped the lawsuit since Zone Labs has reportedly downgraded the risk level of 180's...

Tags: 180Solutions

Blog posts 2006-01-30

Lawsuit against 180solutions, Direct Revenue and eXact Advertising

Hot off the press at SunbeltBLOG:We received a tip from a researcher in the spyware community that there was a lawsuit against 180Solutions, DirectRevenue and eXact Advertising. The problem is that it was filed in a small county in California and thus required a bit of work to get....

Tags: software, eXact Advertising, 180Solutions

Blog posts 2005-12-20