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Zango lowers itself to Wikipedia whitewashing
Zango, the company that continues to live in a state of denial about the horrible things that its adware application does to the computers of unknowing consumers, has adopted a new strategy to polish up its tarnished image.
As the VitalSecurity blog points out, the company over the past few days has repeatedly edited its wikipedia entry – taking out critical comments and replacing them with baseless praise.
Zango earlier this year announced a legal settlement with the FTC over its past wrongs. As part of the deal, Zango promised to ensure that its software wouldn’t get installed without the user's permission and that it would provide clearer disclosures to users.
As multiple security researchers have noticed since, very little has changed. Most notably, botnet operators continue to install Zango on the computers of unsuspecting end users without their permission.
Zango's violations of the FTC settlement have been well documented, but the company still found it necessary to remove references to these missteps from its Wikipedia page.
Zango is trying its hardest to rid itself of the image that it’s a malware pusher. Apparently changing factual statements in its Wikipedia entry is part of that strategy, together with hiring a PR firm that attempted to position the company's founder as a pundit in the field of "not pissing off" your users.
Some free advice to Zango: if you don't want to be called a criminal, get your hand out of the cookie jar before you start complaining.
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An example of Zango's whitewashing: left before, right after. Changes are marked in red in both cases (on the left these amount to deletions by Zango, on the right red marks Zango's additions)
| It usually lures web surfers into downloading their products by acting as a protective gateway to free content. For example, it would say "Click continue to download Zango and gain access to this sexy video". | It advertises to web surfers by offering free content in exchange for [[Time shifted advertising]] |
April 9, 2007 at 06:48 PM | Permalink
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