Comments on: Look Ma! No spyware

By: the.[ED]ition » Comment from Ray Everett-Church

the.[ED]ition » Comment from Ray Everett-Church — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:48:05 +0000

[...] After I posted the update on AGLOCO last night, I was surprised to get a comment from one of the founders of AGLOCO late yesterday evening. Ray Everett-Church is the Chief Privacy Officer of the company and had something to say about the recent discussion of spyware between myself, John Chow and Carl Nelson that spanned between our three blogs. Carl was saying that while the bar that is the basis of the AGLOCO program is entirely voluntary, the software itself is in essense, spyware as it tracked our habits so the ads could be catered to our tastes. However, Ray had this to say in response: I couldn’t disagree more with the characterization of the Viewbar as spyware. In my experience, spyware has four main characteristics: 1) It’s installed without your permission; 2) It surreptitiously tracks you; 3) it is difficult if not impossible to turn off or remove; and, 4) it sends your information to an unknown and untrustworthy entity where you have no control over what happens to it. [...]

By: Ray Everett-Church

Ray Everett-Church — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:47:25 +0000

I couldn’t disagree more with the characterization of the Viewbar as spyware. In my experience, spyware has four main characteristics: 1) It’s installed without your permission; 2) It surreptitiously tracks you; 3) it is difficult if not impossible to turn off or remove; and, 4) it sends your information to an unknown and untrustworthy entity where you have no control over what happens to it.

AGLOCO’s Viewbar (nor AllAdvantage’s Viewbar before it) does not have those characteristics. Indeed, AGLOCO’s Viewbar is the opposite of spyware: you must actively install it, you have to turn it on in order for it to track you and earn your hours, you can easily turn it off and uninstall at will, and finally you know who’s tracking you and our Privacy Policy gives you explicit information about what happens with your data and how you can delete it from our system if you desire.

I know a thing or two about spyware: I was an expert witness in a series of twelve lawsuits in which I testified against one of the major perpetrators of spyware on the Internet. They actually hired me in part because of my experiences at AllAdvantage with permission-based and privacy-protecting advertising technologies like the Viewbar.

If you’re interested (or can’t sleep!) you can read brief excerpts from my 80-page expert witness report (the whole report is, unfortunately, under seal by the federal court). I submitted the excerpts when I testified at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Workshop on Spyware in 2004. My written materials are at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/spyware/040319everett-church.pdf .

I hope that helps clarify things a bit more.

Regards,
Ray Everett-Church
AGLOCO Chief Privacy Officer

By: it's K-Rad y0

it's K-Rad y0 — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:41:37 +0000

Spyware is spyware

My good friends Ed, Stephen, and John have hopped on the “All Advantage 2.0″ bandwagon (also known as Agloco) with a force. John has the perfect readership of people who want more than anything to make money on the internet, so he has alrea…

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 03:51:51 +0000

Of COURSE it is spyware. That’s how it works! It says so right there. They track your browsing, and show ads based on that. That is the basic definition of spyware.

By: Michael Kwan

Michael Kwan — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 02:36:20 +0000

^I need that kind of traffic. I’m at just one referral so far. I’d have to say that’s more pathetic. (Anyone reading this, throw me a bone! Check my blog for my referral code (I’m part of John’s and Ed’s networks, so you’re not screwing them over by signing up under me )

By: [Geeks Are Sexy]

[Geeks Are Sexy] — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 01:30:46 +0000

I’m at 20 signups right now.. I’d love to keep on promoting the program on my blog, but since [GAS] is all about IT and security, posting a second article promoting agloco would probably get me flamed and make me lose a couple of hundreds of readers..

20 signups for 1000 feed subscribers and 5000 page views per day. Pathetic isn’t it?