An Interview with 180 Solutions

Paperghost writes "Here's a great interview between Jimmy Daniels and an anonymous ex-employee of 180 Solutions, who portrays the company as being somewhere between turmoil and meltdown. There's so many notable quotables it's scary, but here's one that really sets the tone: 'Shutting down these rogue distributors turned out to be a lot more difficult than they expected though. When you lose them, your daily installs go down drastically and the revenue goes to hell. The layoff in September could be laid directly at the feet of this effort.'"

Who?

[Eightyford]

I know I'm not the only one has has never heard of 180 Solutions. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

180 Solutions is the company that produces adware applications such as Zango and Seekmo. Formerly, they also produced the 180 Search Assistant (also known as 180sa) and ncase.

Screen Saves and Wallpapers AHOY!

[komodo9]

180 Solutions has forever ruined the free multimedia industry of the internet. Anytime I see a "free screensaver" or "free desktop wallpaper", they're usually somehow connected with spyware and adware.

And their popups/popunders.... ugh.
--
BMW Forums [unitedbimmer.com]

Re:eh?

[Eightyford]

How can they even exist without "rogue distributors"? I was under the impression that that was about 90% of their installs... I don't really know anyone that decides to install that on their own >_>

Well you know when you, or somebody else, installs that addictive new flash game? Well one of the 15 yes buttons that you click is your permission to install that spyware and adware.

Oh....no...

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel so bad for these guys...especially the guys that are surprised by the pink slips.

Poor malicious coders.

Wonder what they put on their resumes...probably would load it with spyware if the paper supported it.

AC

180 solutions can burn in hell

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a run in with one of their people not too many months ago. I had been put on one of their spam mailing lists and I emailed their address to ask for my domain to be removed. Initially, I got a person who said that they wouldn't do it. When I replied and said that I would file a complaint with their upstream data provider, I found my email address mailbombed with additions to about 5000 mailing lists. Luckily these days most mailing lists ask for a confirmation and those that don't I weeding out pretty quick. The moron also didn't realize that most mailing lists confirm messages also include the IP of the subscriber. I replied again and included the draft letter to the upstream provider and a letter of the local police department's electronic crimes office for an attempted DoS attack, but this time someone else responded and apologized. Never heard from them again. Before the slashbots jump on me for replying to SPAM, I'd like to say that I've already paid the price.

Re:I don't want them to go under...

[Jerf]

You're not directly claiming this, but you might want to read up on the broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org]. If you were not always fixing damage done by others, society could use your skills in a more productive manner.

180 Solutions exploits Wikipedia for marketing

[Brushen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zango_Me ssenger&oldid=14840188 [wikipedia.org]

Look at this Wikipedia revision, creating an article on a 180 Solutions product. Look at the history tab, and you will note this revision was done by the IP address 206.169.156.2. The IP address corresponds with 180 SOLUTIONS HOOKED-2 when looked up in the American Registry for Internet Numbers [arin.net].

The article was changed to give it a more neutral tone many times, but in all cases the IP address tried to revert to the original version. The article in its current form is located here [wikipedia.org], but with a sign that says that everything in this article but not be accurate, nor true. The IP address range for 180 Solutions is 206.169.156.0 - 206.169.156.255. See this American Registry for Internet Numbers [arin.net] entry for 180 Solution's physical address. The city can be confirmed by Wikipedia itself.

This was done in June 2005, around the same time the U.S. Congress staffers began editing Wikipedia, coincidentally. Again, using Wikipedia as a source, this company has less than 250 employees. Because this IP address came from the company, what are the odds that the editor created that article about that "instant messaging service" for love of the company alone? It reads like an advertisement.

They used Wikipedia to market their filth, and spyware company or not, that's something I'll always hold in contempt. (mod up)