popup on google

hijacked by the competition?

[roscoepico]

Recently started getting a popup everytime i do a search on google. For ex. If i do a search on "new homes" I get a popup serving the following results: <snip>. Funny how the page is almost exactly like google, but they are serving up results from Overture. Now I know I need to go an find out how to uninstall this garbage, but what do you folks make of this? Aren't these folks in direct competition with each other. This popup looks so similar to google that I have actually clicked on the results once or twice, imagine how many inexperienced surfers are doing the same 10 times over.

[edited by: korkus2000 at 2:19 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]
[edit reason] sniped specifics [/edit]

[ritch_b]

Sounds like possible spyware/adware - have you tried running Spybot Search & Destroy or a similar product?

R.

[edited by: ritch_b at 1:36 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]

[rogerd]

You have become infected by some type of scumware. Check out AdAware from Lavasoft, it's a free download that will scan your PC and delete spyware.

[Sinner_G]

Definitely scumware. Besides, I don't think Overture are aware of this. They probably are not stupid enough to do such a scam, there would be too many copyright infringement issues.

[roscoepico]

You say they are not aware, but I might believe otherwise. These folks are tapping directly into Overtures results and are more then likely sending Overture enough traffic for them to notice, especially since this is affiliate traffic that Overture needs to pay for. Also, downloaded Adaware and Spybot Search & Destroy and neither fixed the problem.

[willybfriendly]

I read a recent thread on this in the alt.newsgroups, but I can not right now remember which one it was. there is a particularly nasty piece of scumware that adaware and other programs con not,k at this point,k clean. You have to clean up your registry by hand to get rid of it. Wish I could be of more help, but I am at work and don't have access to newsgroups here :(

Good luck,

WBF