Despite allegations that the company is not complying with the terms of a $3m
settlement with the FTC, adware vendor Zango said that they will not be making
any drastic changes to their software.
"Nothing there was really a surprise," chief executive Keith Smith told
vnunet.com in an interview.
"We said when the announcement was made that we were already in compliance,
and we stand by that statement. So there are some minor tweaks being made."
In October of 2005, the company decided to no longer allow companies to
sub-contract Zango distribution to 3rd parties. Only Zango's partners are now
allowed to distribute the software, and in December of last year the company
announced that all copies of Zango released before 1 January 2006 would no
longer be supported or receive ads.
"We've spent the last two years focused on compliance and changing our
distribution model," said Smith, who contends that Zango has come a long way
from the days when the software was installed through exploits and spyware
bundles.
"A year ago, we were having discussions with privacy advocates about
affiliates who were installing software without notice or consent. Now the
arguments are 'I don't like the font' or 'I don't like the way you put these
words together' so you've got to put it in that context."
Critics however claim that deceitful tactics are still being used to install
Zango software. In a recently released study, security researchers Ben Edelman
and Eric Howes alleged that Zango failed to properly disclose how the software
operates, that the disclosure of Zango installations are buried deep within
End-User License Agreements (EULA) and that in some cases the software is
installed with no warning whatsoever.
"They’ve simplified, but even so, they still have third parties that are
adopting sleazy practices," Edelman told vnunet.com.
Edelman's study documents eight installations of Zango which he says violate
the terms of the $3m settlement. The study was conducted after the draft FTC
agreement, and Edelman said that the examples were all collected in recent
months, long after Zango enacted its new policies.
In one example, a distributor buried the Zango license agreement 44 pages
deep in an application's EULA. In another case, no disclosure about Zango is
given at all.
The problem, said Edelman, starts with Zango.
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