Tons of spyware from PPC

One PPC put spyware on my machine

[knotty]

I don't know which PPC it was but one of them submitted to a site called: istarthere.com

According to my logs, this site put a whole bunch of spyware in the registry of my machine. Fortunately, spybot and adaware was able to remove it.

Has anyone had any experience with this site and is there a way to find which ppc uses this spy site?

Thanks!
knotty

[Andy_Reid]

I am unsure about the accuracy of your statement that spyware was put in the registry of your machine. I am unsure of if/how a PPC could accomplish this, but I will watch this thread with interest!

[mailpuppy]

Overture currently has an agreement with Gator for inclusion in the GAIN spyware network.

[knotty]

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Yes, I went to my server log to see who the clicks were coming from. One of them was a site called "istarthere.com". So, out of curiousity, I went to "istarthere".

Later that day, I ran spybot and adaware and found 12 entries of spyware installed in my computer registry from "istarthere.com" in addition to about six more in various other places.

I'm not sure which site referred to istarthere but have a pretty good idea.

knotty

[killroy]

Are you sure it wasnT' just cookies which AdAware frequently flags?

SN

[Andy_Reid]

Overture currently has an agreement with Gator for inclusion in the GAIN spyware network.

Forgive me for being thick... but so what? How does this mean that a PPC is installing spyware?

[knotty]

Are you saying you don't mind a company installing spyware on your computer? especially one that alters your computer registry?

[akande]

I dont mind as long as it does not mess up the computer or send me ads and popups. If a third part program I use just installs a toolbar, I'll use it then uninstall it if I dislike it.

I just had Mysearch installed out of nowhere on my PC, I tried it, didnt like it much, uninstalled it and stuck with google.

On the ppc advertiser side, it gives them more of a reach with less fraud because toolbar users arent getting paid.

Would you rather pay for advertising and have thousands of small sites distributing your listing so chances of fraud is like 80% (non-calculated estimate) or thousands of users with toolbars who are not getting paid clicking on your listing out of interest.

Third party software is really the only way to guarantee great distribution of their software. People just need to read the fineprint before installing software. Thats all

[rogerd]

Knotty, how did the site install this spyware - did you have to click "yes" on a download?

[knotty]

No, not at all. No kind of indication whatsoever about anything being installed. I guess that's what kind of irritated me. The only way I found it was by running spybot. I regularly get cookies daily from lots of sites but these were not only cookies but in addition made it's own registry keys. About 10 of them.

I get offers to download a small program with a yes/no choice occassionally. I don't mind this at all.

As to the purpose of these secret entries, I don't know exaclty what they do but I'm just wary of these guys putting stuff you didn't ask for on your computer.

knotty

[martinibuster]

I couldn't log on to AdWords this morning and I hadn't installed any software recently- much less any spyware software.

The only thing I can think of was that I read a thread here asking if something was spyware, then went clicking around a website to view their privacy policy. I recall they offered free emoticons for your email, but that you had to download their toolbar.

Anyway, spybot blasted them out.

[Marcia]

There's some that can install without clicking to consent and no clue that it's being done. Particularly, there's a vulnerability with IE less than IE6.

I've had it happen, there's still something on my desktop that keeps coming back, reinstalling itself.

[akande]

Now that you mentioned that the software appeared without your permission, you should file a complaint or ask them how the process occured.

Perhaps you went to their download page for the toolbar/software directly from a search engine.

You might want to upgrade your browser ande set security to medium or even high. This prevents activex scripts from messing with your pc.

[Andy_Reid]

I have NO experience with anything EVER being installed on my machine that I did not say 'Yes' to. It may have been disguised within something else that I downloaded, but never from just visiting a site. I do not believe that it is possible, but I do update my machine and monitor my security settings. I don't think that you can hang this one on some PPC site that you just browsed through. If you wish me to check out this site, use the sticky mail to send a URL.