PriceGrabber.com, MLB.com weigh in on spyware issue
Both PriceGrabber.com and MLB.com have weighed in on the increasingly contentious issue of spyware or adware, issuing statements that they will not work with companies that use the technology to serve online ads.
MLB Advance Media, the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, announced it would add language to new agreements barring potential future partners from using spyware to distribute commercial messages in connection with MLB.com. The company is working to add anti-spyware language to partnership agreements currently being negotiated. It’s also sent cease and desist letters to spyware providers and advertisers who use it to target MLB.com, No. 90 in the Internet Retailer Top 300 Guide to online retailers.
PriceGrabber.com has launched an anti-spyware initiative with an open letter to users that they will not find pop-up ads served by the company on PriceGrabber.com The company has said it rejects any promotion of its brand on other sites by means of spyware, and that it will not support such advertising programs.
“Spyware” is ad-triggering software, downloaded onto users’ browsers without their full knowledge, which serves pop-up ads depending on what the user is viewing in the browser. The technology also is called adware. “Pop-up advertising, along with intrusive and disruptive advertising practices, is a detriment to user experience on the Internet, which is why we have always rejected it," says Tamim Mourad, CEO of PriceGrabber.com.
While more companies are taking a stand against working with distributors of pop-up advertising consumers and marketers deem obtrusive, enforcement of such language could be challenging. Toward that end, companies such as affiliate services provider LinkShare Corp. requires partners who use any form of adware to meet certain conditions of use, including testing by LinkShare to prove those conditions are being met. Under those criteria, approximately a dozen affiliate programs have left or been dropped by LinkShare, says CEO Stephen Messer.
“Companies have the right to make nay rules they want about who they want to work with,” says Jupiter Research Inc. analyst Gary Stein. The question of enforcement aside, “The notion is that the Internet is a community built on cooperation. This is a public statement to say, let us as advertisers and those doing business make a decision not to use these tactics,” he adds.
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