Making friends with Scumware

does this sound like a good idea?

[too much information]

I think that most people on this forum run affiliate programs or some type of sales on their sites, and until today I did not realize how much Scumware could affect my profits.

I found a script yesterday that detects many different AdWare programs and displays to the user that their machine is running that Ad software, and modified the script so that it would create a log of pageviews from the software.

Honestly I didn't expect to have anything in the log for a week or so, but since midnight I had 8 pageviews from people running AdWare on their machines. (My site is very new so my traffic right now is around 60 pageviews per day total)

What this made me realize is that around 12% of my visitors are seeing ads that appear to be generated by my site, and that these ads may be impacting my CTR. Not to mention that it is my hard work that created the content that brought the visitor in to begin with.

So here is a solution that I have come up with.

I plan on creating Terms and Conditions for displaying ads that appear to be generated by my website, and sending them to the different Scumware companies. (giving them 90 days to opt out) My terms will be that I will bill each page view at a reasonable $0.50 per hit, regardless of weather an ad is shown or not.

They will get a copy of the script that I plan to use to detect them, and if they try to subvert my detection, it will result in a fine of $100. I am also requireing them to notify me in advance of their intentions to block ads from appearing on my site, and they must provide me with a means for confirming that the ads are not shown.

It goes on and on, but you get the idea. Basically I'm saying that my web real estate is valuable, and if you want to advertise on it you have to pay rent just like everyone else.

The reason that I am keeping the fee low is that it is in line with other advertising on the web so if things drag out to where they owe me some serious $ it would hold up in court.

I know we all hate the Scumware companies, but does anyone think this is a reasonable idea?

[webdevsf]

They are going to laugh you out the door, if your message doesn't end up in the spam bin.

Don't waste your time and focus instead on your core product.

[buckworks]

I think morally you'd be in the right but enforcing such charges would be a losing battle. They're called SCUMware for a reason ... they have no honor about respecting other people's property or labour and they're unlikely to start just because you send them a bill.

For practical purposes it would likely be more effective to attack the problem from the users' end: run a script that informs infected users about the undesirable software on their machine, and direct them to reputable resources that will help them get rid of it.

Many people have NO idea about all the extra software their computers have accumulated, and they're often grateful to learn how to get rid of unwanted ad programs.

[too much information]

actually the script informs the user, and logs the hit.

My thoughts are that if you charge for advertising on your content, they should have to pay too. I just don't think they could win a case by saying that they did not have to pay when others do. They could, however, win a case where you are saying that you don't want ads on your site, when you show ads yourself.

I just thought it was a new approach compared to the usual attempts to defeat them that usually don't do enough and will never shut them down. So why not make it more expensive for them to do business. All it would take is one person (or a class action) to win a judgement that they need to pay the site, and their whole system would be busted.

From what I've been reading, the courts don't have a problem with the ads showing, but nobody has brought up the question about them paying for their ads to show on a site. Especially something like TopText which actually makes links in the content of the page.

[hobbnet]

This is all good and true but the thing is most scumware tries to legitimize itself by saying a user opted into using their program. They say the user wanted to see these "informative" ads (and whatever else), based upon their surfing habits.

So, the user has given the scumware permission to alter how they see the web.

[rfung]

and of course there's always the issue that ..are you going to be the one to foot the laywer bills to enforce such action? the legal battle could take years. Granted, perhaps the scum ware companies are relying on this fact to continue playing their game, so it's a matter of who's got the most resources and is the most persistent....

[worker]

What you should do is get the scumware product and install it. Watch what it pops up, and send screen shots to the BIG players that are being affected.

In other words if you an affiliate of the #1 soda company, and the #2 soda company isn't on your site, but the scumware product is popping up ads for #2, screenshot them and send them to the marketing department of #1. Call first, explain what happened, and then send the proof.

The big companies are the ones putting pressure on the parasites. Help to make them aware and let them fight the battle for you.

[lukasz]

The users has the full right to install any software they want on their computers, that icludes scumware, and it was already upheld by courts in favour of scumware. You only remedy is to prevent users with scumware on their computers to view your page which you can implement easily.

[worker]

You can still educate the user about what is happening, because most have been tricked into the install, and don't even know it's there.

You can also provide links to the software applications that help to remove the scumware from an infected computer.

You can also take screen shots and send to your merchant partners to let them know that their competitors are stealing traffic.

[fabfurs]

How do you know that an ad (i guess a popup) is being presented to your visitors when they visit your site and they have this type of SCUMware installed on their machine?

Would my log files show something?

[KenB]

Many of the scumware detection routines I've seen work on the principle of alerting users that they are infected with scumware. So far I have only found one script that is supposed to disable the effects of scumware and that was for TextTop.

I have successfully developed measures to disable most ad-blocking software and prevent users of ad-blocking software I can't circumvent from accessing my site. I now want to turn my focus to detecting and neutralizing the effects of scumware on my site and alerting users that they are infected.

Does anyone know of good resources to help me in my quest? If anyone is interested in helping me with my efforts, please sticky mail me.

[fabfurs]

too much information
Can you tell me how to find the script that you mentioned in msg 1?
Thanks

[JollyK]

too much information
Can you tell me how to find the script that you mentioned in msg 1?

Um. At the risk of saying "me too," ... me too, please? :-)

JK

[edit]I googled for 'scumware detector script' and found a few. YMMV.[/edit]