• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 1, 2008

Adware company WhenU, known in recent years as one of the cleanest adware purveyors in the market, was quietly bought by the Vomba Network several weeks ago.

Neither company has announced the move, but industry observers say they recently became aware of a change in ownership, in part because the end-user license agreement for WhenU's adware programs was updated March 6 to reflect the company's new corporate parent.

Privacy watchdog Truste last year accepted both New York-based WhenU and Montreal-based Vomba into its whitelist program for trusted downloads, but delisted Vomba in June. At the time, Truste said that Vomba "made a business decision that they no longer want to make the financial commitment to maintain certification." Truste also said that Vomba was exploring "new and creative distribution methods, particularly in the peer-to-peer market," which it would have had to discontinue to remain on the whitelist.

WhenU was still on Truste's whitelist as of Monday, but Truste is in the process of investigating whether WhenU can remain on the list given its new ownership. "There are some unanswered questions," said Colin O'Malley, Truste's vice president of strategic partnerships and programs. "We want to make sure we understand what, if any, changes were made to the application," he said.

Vomba shares some key executives with Integrated Search Technologies, which was accused by the digital rights group Center for Democracy & Technology in 2005 of installing adware without consumers' permission. The advocacy group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in 2005, charging that Integrated Search Technologies bundled its adware with NegativeBeats.com, a site that claimed to offer free MP3 downloads.

The complaint alleged that NegativeBeats.com, based in Bucharest, Romania, installs Integrated Search Technologies' adware to consumers without first disclosing that they will receive pop-up ads as a result. In addition, according to the complaint, it wasn't possible to actually download music from the site.