• ClickZ, Thursday, July 20, 2006 1 PM

A bad year for Vonage just got worse. Spyware watchdog Ben Edelman has singled out the VoIP company for serving ads through alleged spyware companies. Vonage is the Web's biggest spender, having held that position since the beginning of the year, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Edelman's report, "How Vonage Funds Spyware," lists 12 examples in which the company's ads appeared in known spyware applications, in adware-served banners, and in one instance, in a banner ad that blocked another ad. Edelman made these observations during March, June, and July. Since Vonage spends so much on the Web (some $31 million per month according to TNS), the report suggests it has "less excuse for not getting it right." Vonage countered Edelman's claims by saying it had severed its ties with Hula Direct and Direct Revenue, two of the spyware companies mentioned in his report. The most egregious offense of all, he said, was the instance where a Vonage ad delivered on Boston.com through DollarRevenue was placed over another paid for by the Kellogg School of Management. Another ad served by a FullContext application appeared at the top of Google's search engine--a place where the site doesn't sell advertising at all.

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