• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, September 7, 2005

Faced with the persistent problem of affiliates performing adware installations without users' consent, adware companies 180solutions and Direct Revenue are implementing anti-drive-by plans.

Adware purveyor 180solutions is expected to today release a new version of its software that is designed to cut down on installations without permission. Meanwhile, Direct Revenue's CEO J.P. Maheu says that the company will stop using affiliates by the end of the year.

180solutions will require all new affiliates to use the new product, and is giving its existing 8,000 affiliates until Dec. 31 to start using it. After this date, 180solutions won't pay affiliates for installations. In other words, said 180solutions' spokesman Sean Sundwall, affiliates will have no financial incentive to download the company's adware without consumers' consent.

"This new technology will basically force distributors to show our consent, to ensure that the consent process will happen on every installation," said Sundwall.

The latest version of the software will require that 180solutions itself serves the end user license agreement to potential consumers before they download the program.

Until now, 180solutions' contracts with affiliates banned distributions without the consent of consumers, but most policing was after the fact. "We realized we will never win the arms race if all we have is lawyers enforcing contracts," Sundwall said. The new technology, he said, "will do the vast majority of the heavy lifting for us."

Drive-by downloads have long plagued the adware industry. Many of the most established players say they tell affiliates not to download programs without first obtaining users' permission, but some affiliates--paid on a per-download basis--do so anyway.

180solutions has since January ended relationships with 500 distributors, Sundwall said.

Still, not all adware critics are assuaged by 180solutions' efforts. Consultant Bed Edelman, a graduate student at Harvard University, said the larger problem is that even when consumers are shown a license agreement, some still don't realize the consequences of downloading adware. Therefore, maintains Edelman, some consumers don't give informed consent to the products.

Direct Revenue, currently facing a class-action lawsuit over alleged non-consensual installations, intends to phase out its affiliates by the end of the year, said Maheu, who took over as CEO earlier this year. "We are in the midst of transforming the company," Maheu told OnlineMediaDaily.

Maheu added that Direct Revenue has cut back on the number of ads served each day by 25 percent, to an average of 4.8. The company also two weeks ago reduced its workforce by about one-third, or 40 people.