• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 28, 2005

Adware company 180solutions Monday began a campaign to inform all consumers who receive adware from the company that they have ad-serving software installed on their computers.

For the initiative, 180solutions intends to serve all adware recipients pop-ups telling them that they have 180search Assistant or Zango Search Assistant installed on their desktops. The pop-ups--which will inform customers that they receive two to three ads a day in exchange for free content--also will contain uninstall instructions.

The company expects to reach all 20 million of its adware recipients by the end of July, said Sean Sundwall, 180solutions' director of public communications.

The consumer notification is part of an ongoing initiative by 180solutions to polish its image. In the last several months, the company filed lawsuits against distributors that allegedly were installing the ad-serving programs without first obtaining consumers' consent. Additionally, 180solutions has cut off 422 distributors so far this year, Sundwall said.

Later this summer, the company plans to revise its software to make it harder for distributors to install it without recipients' consent. The upgrade, said Sundwall, "is going to make it very difficult for distributors to do drive-by downloads of our software."