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Confessions Of An Adware Purveyor

In a podcast, Baur explains how 180solutions--a company many critics see as the reigning bad boy of the adware business--is trying to legitimize itself, and how it may have hit on a formula to reap millions upon millions of dollars in revenue by providing an alternative to subscription-based businesses charging users for content.

As more providers seek money for their products, often through subscriptions, consumers' abhorrence to adware might wane as people exchange a few ads popping up in their PC windows for the ability to shop online for content that otherwise would cost them in the aggregate hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.

If 180solutions and other adware providers don't get their houses in order by 1) clearly explaining to consumers what their software will do, 2) installing the software with users' consent, 3) designing software that limits CPU consumption so computers don't run sluggishly, and 4) assuring that the adware doesn't interfere with nonshopping Internet use, their days as a wayward industry will peter out.

Read more about adware and spyware in this week's cover story, "The Spies Inside."

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