Quote:
Originally posted by afisk
Moak-
Thanks for getting back to me. The lying thing is, honestly, ridiculous. I've been here the whole time. I build the installers that bundle all of the spyware. So, if any lies were told, they would have been told by me, and there's nothing I've lied about.
Since we started bundling other programs, LimeWire has always bundled Cydoor without asking the user. We never lied about it. We just did it. It's an ad engine, and LimeWire serves ads. |
CYDOOR
from
http://www.cydoor.com/Cydoor/Company/CompanyPrivacy.htm
The small print:
<FONT COLOR=MAGENTA><FONT SIZE=-1>"What Cydoor Technologies Does
Cydoor Technologies delivers content to software applications that use Cydoor's advertising technology. In the process of delivering this content, as well as performing online transactions, Cydoor will sometimes query you by means of a registration form for demographic data (gender, age, interests, marital status, salary, area code, country, and education). We will not collect personally identifiable information such as name, address, or telephone number. All of this information is aggregated for the purposes of reporting to advertisers and ad sales organizations the performance of their ad campaigns, and to deliver content targeted to your interests. Because Cydoor Technologies derives its revenue mainly from advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential in keeping our service free to users.
Use of Unique Identifiers
Cydoor no longer assigns a unique user ID.
Use of Cookies
According to the standards of the Internet advertising industry, third-party ad servers associated with our technology make use of cookies. Cookies, by default, are enabled in the browser, and the user can turn them off via the cookies disabling menu.
Third Party Privacy
Please be aware that Cydoor advertisers or Web sites that have links in software on our network may utilize demographic information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those Web sites linked from software on the Cydoor Network. From time to time, Cydoor works with third-party ad servers such as Valueclick, Commission Junction, Adventures, Advertising.com, RealMedia and BeFree and others to serve advertising to the Cydoor Network. Please visit these providers individually to learn more about how they handle privacy."</FONT></FONT>
<I>"Please be aware that Cydoor advertisers or Web sites that have links in software on our network may utilize demographic information about you."</I>
What the h@ll does that mean? It says above there is no GUID, and also implies above that only aggregated data is collected .. so WTF is this disclaimer about web sites utilizing demographic information about me? What, they download the aggregated statistics when I visit, to figure out that I'm probably a white male in my teens-20s with a PC? OK, that doesn't sound too bad, but if there's no GUID and also if cookies are served 'according to the standards of the internet advertising industry', HTF do they know I'm a member of the aggregated data?
I'm guessing they get around the fact that cookies served 'according to the standards of the internet' are only sent back to the originating server by having say an ad on their page which is hosted by CyDoor's server somewhere, and also having a private link to CyDoor which tells them when one of their victims accesses the ad.
I call that spyware.
As they say, they have deployed their spamware to over 50 million users .. I wonder how many web sites they work with? Probably quite a significant number, I'd say. Quite a little network.
<FONT COLOR=MAGENTA><FONT SIZE=-1>"Providing Cydoor with your email address will enable us to send Cydoor-specific technology updates, as well as special offers and promotions from our business partners. "</FONT></FONT>
Gee, isn't that nice? 'Darling, look, a new technology update for our spam service has arrived, go tell the kids!'
<FONT COLOR=MAGENTA><FONT SIZE=-1>"
Security
This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. User demographic information is not kept on Cydoor's computer, but rather on the user's computer. Email addresses provided to us are kept on a secure server. Only authorized employees of Cydoor Technologies will have access to this information."</FONT></FONT>
Gee, that's good security, using the users win98 PC to store their demographic data. How can this be so, if the only data they use is aggregated? Are they saying they store their aggregated data on our PCs? I don't think so. Any idea what the filenames are? I bet there's plenty shared out by those newbie windows users who share out their whole hard drives.
I think the truth has been dealt somewhat economically here...
Quote:
| As you know, we also install TopMoxie without allowing the user to opt out. We don't lie about this either. We tell you in the first screen in the installer what we're doing. |
TOPMOXIE
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=To...l.co.uk&rnum=6
<FONT COLOR=RED>"From: Tumbleweed (spamtumbleweed@tumbleweed.freeserve.co.uk)
Subject: Re: Windows 98 dialling up for unknown reason... AHA!!
Newsgroups: alt.windows98
View: Complete Thread (3 articles) | Original Format
Date: 2001-04-25 06:14:04 PST
"Tumbleweed" <spamtumbleweed@tumbleweed.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9c6fce$ce7$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
>
>
> "ByTor" <ByTor@snowdog.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.15507712e9feac4e98984a@news.frontiernet.n et...
> > In article <9c6640$gu7$1@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> >
spamtumbleweed@tumbleweed.freeserve.co.uk says... while attaching C4
> > explosives to computer and foaming at the mouth!
> >
> > > My Win 98 PC has started trying to dial out (to my ISP) for no apparent
> > > reason. I have a fully up to date virus scanner operative all the time and
> > > don't appear to have viruses. How can I find out why its trying to dial?
> > > CTRL-ALT-DEL tasklist doesnt show anything.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Tumbleweed
> > >
> > > Remove 'spam' from email replies (but no email reply necessary to
> > > newsgroups)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > Have you recently installed any programs? Check the settings in new progs
> > to see if they have some kind of auto check in them......If you are
> > familiar with firewalls than ZoneAlarm can show you what it is when it
> > tries to dial out because it will ask for your permission to let it go
> > through.....It's free and won't expire, you can get it here:
> >
> >
http://www.zonelabs.com/
> >
> > Very popular and easy to use....
> >
> > Good Luck!
> >
>
> Thanks to you and Starbase. I now have a suspect, Getright (even though I
> have no outstanding files to download but I wonder if its checking for
> updates), but I'm going to try the apps you recommended to check for sure.
>
Seems its not Getright, Zone alarm caught a program called 'javarun.exe'
trying to dialout. Which is associated with something called 'topmoxie'.
Looks like some sort of advertising thing. I shall be having a strict words
with my kids later :-) and topmoxie is now toast.
Thanks
--
Tumbleweed
Remove 'spam' from email replies (but no email reply necessary to
newsgroups)"</FONT>
Quote:
| The only other thing I can imagine that you're referring to is the ClickTillUWin scandle. We really did think that the ClickTillUWin executable was just installing a desktop icon because that's what the resellers told us, just as they told BearShare, Kazaa, Grokster, etc. All of us removed it as soon as we realized that it was not doing what we had been told it would do. |
AFisk, you're not telling me you actually <I>believe</I> what you're told by spamware salesmen???
Gee, I didn't know how bad this was. When people start saying 'that's it man, really' .. I start thinking like I'm a cop and you're a drug dealer ... 'that's it man, really'. Uh huh ... Joey, get the dogs.
Quote:
| That last one's pretty bad. |
I don't think I need to say anything more. In fact I can't. I'm speechless and dumbfounded. Sh*t.
Nos