Adware Company Debuts

A relatively new adware company, midADdle, formally announced its presence on Monday. midADdle hypes itself as a two-tiered network--a contextual marketer that is integrated with a network of Web publishers, which includes content sites like newgrounds.com, albinoblacksheep.com, and screensavers.com, according to the company.

Currently, midADdle only features interstitials, or advertisements that appear in a separate browser window while a user waits for a Web page to load, but the company says it plans to add more formats to its network within the next month. In the meantime, said company spokespersons, specializing has allowed midADdle to focus on the needs of publishers--offering the best rates on the market, and providing quality customer support, according to company spokespersons. Although midADdle waited until yesterday to announce its formation, the company has been in business since the middle of last year.

Michael Katz, managing partner at midADdle, said the network only installs adware after Web users, eager for free Web content like games, agree to transparent license agreements.

But Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the Center has been receiving user complaints about midADdle's deceptive procedures for some time. Schwartz said the Center is still investigating said claims, and has yet to reach any conclusions--but acknowledged the "affiliate problem," when "partners of companies like midADdle give users incomplete or no information about what they are getting into, and what's being installed on their computers."

Katz said that the click-through rate on ads sent by midADdle is 4.6 percent, and that about 80 percent of midADdle's 100 or so advertiser-clients have renewed their contracts with the company since its inception.

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