180Solutions To Sue Distributors In Latest Attempt To Clean Up Reputation

Legal Issues

from the a-loooooooong-way-to-go dept

180Solutions has one of the worst reputations of the various adware companies out there. This is the same company, after all, that was accused of using its adware to insert its own affiliate codes whenever people shopped at certain e-commerce sites — effectively taking money away from the legitimate affiliates that brought people to those sites. One thing the company has often done when confronted with accusations about its behavior is to accuse its own distributor affiliates of being the real problem. It’s true that adware affiliates are often to blame for some of the sneaky techniques used in adware, but plenty of these companies have done little to stop those affiliates. 180solutions claimed that was changing, and to prove it, they bought their largest distributor — who was often accused of being part of the problem. This made little sense, again, as they were effectively rewarding this distributor for being a problem. It appears they may have gotten the message on that front (perhaps with the help of their new PR person from Microsoft) and have decided, this time, that rather than buying the distributors they blame for their problems, it might make sense to sue them. It’s a start, but the company has quite the hill to climb to convince people that it’s really turned completely legit.