Merchants using Zango (adware)

[julianhearn]

I have recently be contacted by utarget, who tried to sell me their “contextual advertising” service. It sounded a lot like adware to me:

“UTcontextual enables advertisers to deliver targeted, full page, high impact ads to opted-in users. These ads are triggered by keywords and URLs that are booked by advertisers and then searched on by users, representing user behaviour”
http://www.utarget.co.uk/v2/products/utcontextual.asp

another agency also sell this service: http://www.eyeconomy.co.uk/contextual/contextual_marketing.aspx

So I asked who was driving the contextual ads, and surprise, surprise it was Zango!! Zango have recently paid the Federal Trade Commission $3million, in response to charges that it breached federal law by deceptively installing advertising software on consumers' PCs without a clear means of removal. (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6132364.html )

Below is a link to a recent review of Zango, which shows that bad practices continue at Zango -- practices that, in Ben Edlelman's opinion, put Zango in violation of the key terms and requirements of the FTC settlement. Ben is an authority on Spyware and Adware. http://www.benedelman.org/news/112006-1.html

Utarget said that several mobile phone companies were using the service, so I asked for details. They have given a list but I’m not going to name and shame yet. I have contacted several of the merchants, either directly or via affiliate networks and some have promised to stop using it ASAP and will not use it again in the future.

I have installed Zango on my PC and will be reporting any misuse by affiliates and merchants. It would be useful is some affiliates installed zango too, so you can help monitor the situation.


Julian Hearn
Head of Online Marketing
Dialaphone.co.uk

[Brendon]

There are obvious alternatives...
AdSense, AdPrecision, AdBrite (although I hear you need to be a shade careful how you set that up etc), Chitika (they do have a contextual option, but you have to have the right sort of site to make it work, I gather), even YPN.

I'd generally recommend the first two for most sites

[Anyanka]

Originally Posted by Brendon There are obvious alternatives... AdSense, AdPrecision, AdBrite (although I hear you need to be a shade careful how you set that up etc), Chitika (they do have a contextual option, but you have to have the right sort of site to make it work, I gather), even YPN. I'd generally recommend the first two for most sites

How kind of you.

If you want to give me a shout feel free.

[Rich]

This post may be of some interest - http://www.a4uforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=42169

Out of interest did TD tell you about the affiliate that was using 180/Zango to target you and were you able to reverse commissions? Also has dialaphonepp stopped working with them?

I reinstalled Zango yesterday to do some checks from another thread and there are still plenty of cases of affiliates and merchants using it. Personally I've spent far too much time on this issue and don't have the time, or motivation, to keep reporting, and proving, issues to networks.

It would be much more useful for the network would install it themselves rather than rely on reports from others.

[julianhearn]

Rich you are right the networks should do more to police this. Some networks are better than others.

Regarding the affiliate using zango on dialaphone, we are aware and he will be removed and all pending payments deleted.

Julian.