This may or may not make you feel a little better after yet another night of cleaning out those pestiferous adware and spyware programs that drop those infernal popup and other online ads on you, but it seems that two of the pests are going after each other, for a change, and one of them has taken the other to court.
Avenue Media has accused DirectRevenue of using competing software to hunt, find, and delete Avenue Media's Internet Optimizer program from its customers' computers, according to a late November complaint filed in federal court in Seattle.
Avenue Media is based in the Caribbean and offers little information on its main Website other than a link to the Yoogee search engine. DirectRevenue is based in New York and promotes itself as the maker of ad targeting software
Avenue Media did not return a query for comment from AVNOnline.com before this story went to press, while DirectRevenue chief executive Joshua Abram said he could not comment on active litigation on the advice of company attorneys.
But the November 24 complaint showed Avenue Media accusing them of detecting and then sending a command to kill Avenue Media's Internet Optimizer, which Avenue Media's filing claims cost the company nearly a million customers and up to $10,000 per day in revenue.
"DirectRevenue, knowingly and with intent to defraud, exceeded its authorized access to users' computers...by automatically uninstalling Avenue Media's Internet Optimizer upon installation or update of DirectRevenue's competing browser," read the complaint, which was filed in a district court in Seattle.
For their part, DirectRevenue's licensing agreement includes a clause that says it might uninstall competing applications. "You further understand and agree," the clause says, "by installing the software, that the software may, without any further prior notice to you, remove, disable or render inoperative other adware programs resident on your computer."
Analysts say the litigation is critical because if Avenue Media prevails it could raise new questions about software makers' rights in terms of changing their users' personal computer settings, as well as crank up the volume on consumer and privacy advocates already feeling at war with adware, spyware, and malware.
And if DirectRevenue prevails? "Assuming you could get away with this, it could be highly lucrative," said Harvard University researcher Ben Edelman.
"For companies making programs that show users extra pop-up ads, one persistent problem is that users are bound to take action once their computers get too clogged with unwanted software," Edelman wrote on his own Web page. "Find a removal tool, hire a technician, reinstall Windows, buy a new computer, or just stop using the Internet -- whatever users do, the pop-up companies won't make any more money if users don't keep surfing, and don't keep clicking the ads. The problem is all the worse because so many unwanted programs install others (usually in exchange for a per-install commission). So if a user has one program showing extra pop-ups, the user might soon have five more."
Edelman said he himself has seen DirectRevenue programs remove competitor programs as described in its licensing agreement—his own test computer turned up with both DirectRevenue and Avenue Media through security holes.
"In my testing, DirectRevenue's software acts on [stopping Internet Optimizer's main program], then deleting the associated registry entries and program files," he said. "So I think Avenue Media is correct as to the basic facts of what's happening. Conveniently, in tests beginning on November 17, I even made videos showing Internet Optimizer's software being deleted -- files eerily disappearing as DirectRevenue's software deleted Internet Optimizer along with other targeted programs."
DirectRevenue software programs are known under such names as A Better Internet, BI, Twaintek, and Thinstall, according to the Avenue Media complaint.
Avenue Media, however, has its own problems apart from any conflict with DirectRevenue. Edelman said his own testing showed Avenue software—just like DirectRevenue's—installs without notice or consent, and when it does its primary function is to show extra ads by replacing Web browser error messages with its own client ads. "[That is] not a feature most users request," Edelman said.
And Avenue Media's Internet Optimzer licensing agreement acknowledges tracking sites visited and keywoards searched, Edelman added, while the program also has its own security flaws risking unauthorized installation of other software.
