The Security Mentor

WhenU is a controversial program that displays ads based on what web site you're viewing. Claria, the company that makes it, brings up two points in its defense. First, they call it "contextual advertising". Second, they've sued someone who called it spyware. I guess that's one way to win an argument.

What we know is that when bad guys were taking over Web servers last year to send out toxic web pages that exploited a security hole in Internet Explorer, one of the programs they installed on victims's machines was WhenU. One poll said the overwhelming majority of people with WhenU on their computers didn't know they had installed it. And of course the software is monitoring what web pages you visit so it can know when to display ads for blue pills.

So who are the advertisers that support all this activity? Believe it or not, some legitimate companies. Ben Edelman publishes a list of companies who advertise on WhenU. Those companies are not eager to talk about it: a Businessweek article about adware says "Of the 26 major advertisers that BusinessWeek called for this story, 18 declined to comment on their adware marketing or did not return calls".