Adware Situation

[Joel92]

Here's a bit of an ethical situation I guess;


If you were offered a job to develop Adware for some company, would you take the job? (Pay is decent)



I personally would take it even knowing I'd be helping to develop something awful and annoying...



How about you?

[DemonWasp]

Develop it. But, apply some conditions to the things you code, if you have any leverage at all:

1. It must not flash or animate or produce sound, unless it does so extremely subtly and to good effect.

2. It must be blockable with AdBlock Plus or derivatives. I decide when a site gets my adviews, not the other way around (speaking of which, does CompSci.ca have ads? I'd gladly allow this site to show me unobtrusive ads).

3. If you code the ad-matching algorithm, display ONLY those ads that match the content of the page, as best as you can determine. If I'm reading about CPUs, I don't want to see ads for how I can buy a car or find sexy singles in my area: the only ads that are acceptable to show me are those dealing with computer hardware.

4. If the ad requires Flash or JavaScript to display, have it use a reasonable fallback. Ideally, to a static image.

5. Optimise for bandwidth. If your ads make the page take three times as long to load, not only will I leave the page without reading the content, I won't click on any of the ads, and I'll probably blacklist the ad provider forever.

It *is* possible to advertise in an ethical, pleasant fashion. North American advertisers tend to be extravagantly bad at this (I blame our waning attention spans).

[Insectoid]

Compsci.ca does indeed have ads; try logging out, then viewing the site. One privilege of members is that we don't have to endure them.

[Tony]

when you say "adware", do you mean "malware that installs itself on one's computer and injects ads", or an advertisement distribution platform (such as AdSense)?

[DemonWasp]

@insectoid: Oh, I knew about those. I was wondering if there were any displayed to members, and apparently there aren't. Very cool of the site to eschew ads entirely for members.

@Tony: Oh yeah. That. My post was directed at AdSense ads. Malware ads can die in a fire, as can applications that feel the need to have animated ads inside them (I'm looking at you, Windows Live Messenger).

[Joel92]

Tony @ Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:02 pm wrote:

when you say "adware", do you mean "malware that installs itself on one's computer and injects ads", or an advertisement distribution platform (such as AdSense)?

Sorry guy's should have specified this before, I ment actual adware as in malware. Such as Zango....something like a browser tool bar / spyware etc.


They usually play it off as "Ad-supported software"

[DemonWasp]

Nurr...that's a tougher question. Are there better / other job offers around? Is this your only option?

If you need the money (wouldn't be surprising...) then go ahead and take it. See if you can code in a path to cleanly uninstall the software if you can. Don't feel too badly as long as the software requires user consent to install.

But if you have other options, by all means take them. I can't help but suspect that a company with such little regard for its customers isn't going to have much regard for you, its employee.

[Joel92]

DemonWasp @ Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:58 pm wrote:

Nurr...that's a tougher question. Are there better / other job offers around? Is this your only option?

If you need the money (wouldn't be surprising...) then go ahead and take it. See if you can code in a path to cleanly uninstall the software if you can. Don't feel too badly as long as the software requires user consent to install.

But if you have other options, by all means take them. I can't help but suspect that a company with such little regard for its customers isn't going to have much regard for you, its employee.

There are no job offers at the moment. You have to decide within a couple of days if you want to take the job, so you don't have time to look for other jobs... and you need the money.

DemonWasp @ Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:58 pm wrote:

I can't help but suspect that a company with such little regard for its customers isn't going to have much regard for you, its employee.

Good point ^

[Euphoracle]

Ad-Supported applications can work. Blizzard's Battle.Net platform employs a banner ad on the top. As long as you're not interfering with the user experience (such as popups when your application isn't running, or otherwise attempting to prevent removal), then I think it's perfectly fine. After all, someone has to pay for software development, and as long as you alert your to-be user that the software is ad-supported, and give them the option to decline installation of the software (in its entirety, or just the ad portions), then you're in the clear.

Just my opinion.

[DemonWasp]

Joel92: Times are harsh, take the job. If it makes you feel any better, contribute to an open-source project, a tutorial center, or something else on the side. Even helping out the newbies on compsci.ca may help to boost your karma

Euphoracle: That's only acceptable if the ads are, as stated, unobtrusive and related to content. Steam has ads in it, but they're all for games available on Steam itself, not for random other items I have no interest in.

Addendum: At no time is it acceptable for a program to transfer personal information from me to any third party unless I explicitly review and allow that transfer. Requiring this transfer to proceed for the program to operate normally is unethical.

[Dan]

Is installing unwanted software on peoples computers with out concent or permison agiansted the law?

I blive the type of asware you are talking about is basicly a worm or virues (where the pay load is puting ads everywhere) so in alot of countries you could be breaking the law by making the adware (unless the users some how agree to it or there is some other loop hole).

I am not sure how the law would work in terms of your being hired to help some one else or some company to break the law but i don't see it ending well. But even if it does not get you in fined or jailed it would at the very least wreck your repuation and hurt your chances of getting a good job when the company goes under or kicks you out. I know i would not hire any one progamming adware.

[Tony]

Some might find this interview interesting to read

http://philosecurity.org/2009/01/12/interview-with-an-adware-author

[andrew.]

The website must be down because whenever I click that link, it brings up the useless Rogers 404 search.

[Tony]

Works fine for me

try http://www.opendns.com/

[andrew.]

I have tried OpenDNS before, but I don't like the idea of my data going through someone else's servers. I'd rather it go through Rogers' servers.