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MalWare Investors

Thursday, January 13, 2005 | 06:19 AM

Ben Edelman is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Economics at Harvard University and a student at the Harvard Law. He is more than annoyed at spyware.

Ben has been fairly active tracking the activities of spyware companies. While most of us merely whine about the pathetic weasels who put out this technogarbage (along with making an occasional anonymous death threat), he has actually done something productive about it.

His site is a rich resource for "Research, Testing, Legislation, and LawSuits". More recently, Ben created a page that:

"lists major US companies in the spyware business as I define it (tracking and/or collecting sensitive information, either without notice and consent or without meaningful notice and informed consent), along with the investors who have provided these companies with, by my count, at least $139 million of venture funding."

In other words, a list of the VCs who gave money to Malware firms. I wonder how many partners know that they are investors who fund and support Spyware? Let's hope they apply pressure to their general partners to stop them, and cut the funding off at the source.

I like the idea a lot. Nothing like a little sunshine on bad corporate/VC activity to influence some behavioral modifications.

Source:
Investors Supporting Spyware
Ben Edelman
http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/investors/

Ben Edelman's research on VC malware investments:

Company (products)	Investment amount, firm, date	Controversial product characteristics / my research / references
180solutions (Zango, n-Case)	$40 million - Spectrum Equity Investors - March 2004	installation through security holes claiming affiliate commissions covering web sites with competitors' sites
Claria / Gator (GAIN)	$58+ million - U.S. Venture Partners, Greylock, Crosslink Capital, Garage Technology Ventures, Rosewood Stone Group, Investor AB, Technology Crossover Ventures	confusing installations with lengthy, poorly-presented, one-sided licenses covering web sites with ads for competitors making false claims about business practices
Direct Revenue (OfferOptimizer, many aliases)	$20 million - Insight Venture Partners - April 2004 $6.7 million - Technology Investment Capital Corp - August 2004	installation through security holes deleting competitors from users' disks covering web sites with competitors' sites Newsweek article: use of many aliases, claiming affiliate commissions advertiser list forthcoming
eXact Advertising (BargainBuddy, BullsEye)	$15 million - Technology Investment Capital Corp - November 2004	installation through security holes claiming affiliate commissions covering web sites with competitors' sites advertiser list forthcoming