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Unclear from the article: what is IAC, and what did their extensions purport to do?

by cma 6y ago

spartas 6y ago
IAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company) Your second question is valid though
- naringas 6y ago
  In my own worldview companies such as this as at this point autonomous entities made from money and owned by other money. This is the stuff that skynet is made from. This particular one seems noxious, but there are others which do make useful stuff, e.g. Kraft? Nestle? DuPont? P&G? come to mind.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- im3w1l 6y ago
  They sure do a lot of disparate things. Is the issue with only one or a few of the areas in which they are involved? Surely vimeo, the daily beast are uninvolved in this?
  - ma2rten 6y ago
    I think it's mainly ask.com
notatoad 6y ago
IAC was at one time Google's largest single advertising customer. Detail of the complaint from the wsj article linked above: > Many users of IAC extensions expressed agitation, the audit found. “Tricked into installing it and can’t delete it,” said one user in a review on the Google Chrome store, which the audit called representative. “DO NOT INSTALL” warned another. “IAC’s business model appears to rely almost exclusively on unintentional installs,” members of the Chrome safety team wrote in the audit. Of special concern in the audit were ads that IAC ran against search terms such as “how to vote,” “vote by mail” and “voter fraud.” Users who clicked on the ads didn’t get voting-related information, the audit found. Instead, their browser home pages were reset to MyWay, and the separate, IAC-owned Ask.com toolbar was installed on those users’ browsers, the audit found. The audit found that IAC continued to run such ads even after Google told the company to stop.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eznzt 6y ago
  >“Tricked into installing it and can’t delete it,” said one user in a review on the Google Chrome store How is that possible? Or are we simply looking at someone who doesn't know how to use her computer?
  - michaelt 6y ago
    I haven't used Windows in many years, but back in the day adware would get itself bundled with native applications' installers - for example, you download and install Java on Windows, they try to trick you into installing a toolbar. Once your adware is installed as a native application, you simply install two copies, each of which immediately reinstalls and restarts the other should it get removed/stopped.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      This is a Chrome extension - they're supposed to be sandboxed, and unable to pull such tricks. If it really couldn't be uninstalled from the installed extensions list in Chrome, I'd love to know how they did it.

Unclear from the article: what is IAC, and what did their extensions purport to do?

by cma 6y ago

Unclear from the article: what is IAC, and what did their extensions purport to do?

IAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAC_(company) Your second question is valid though

naringas 6y ago
In my own worldview companies such as this as at this point autonomous entities made from money and owned by other money. This is the stuff that skynet is made from. This particular one seems noxious, but there are others which do make useful stuff, e.g. Kraft? Nestle? DuPont? P&G? come to mind.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
im3w1l 6y ago
They sure do a lot of disparate things. Is the issue with only one or a few of the areas in which they are involved? Surely vimeo, the daily beast are uninvolved in this?
- ma2rten 6y ago
  I think it's mainly ask.com

notatoad 6y ago

IAC was at one time Google's largest single advertising customer. Detail of the complaint from the wsj article linked above: > Many users of IAC extensions expressed agitation, the audit found. “Tricked into installing it and can’t delete it,” said one user in a review on the Google Chrome store, which the audit called representative. “DO NOT INSTALL” warned another. “IAC’s business model appears to rely almost exclusively on unintentional installs,” members of the Chrome safety team wrote in the audit. Of special concern in the audit were ads that IAC ran against search terms such as “how to vote,” “vote by mail” and “voter fraud.” Users who clicked on the ads didn’t get voting-related information, the audit found. Instead, their browser home pages were reset to MyWay, and the separate, IAC-owned Ask.com toolbar was installed on those users’ browsers, the audit found. The audit found that IAC continued to run such ads even after Google told the company to stop.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eznzt 6y ago
>“Tricked into installing it and can’t delete it,” said one user in a review on the Google Chrome store How is that possible? Or are we simply looking at someone who doesn't know how to use her computer?
- michaelt 6y ago
  I haven't used Windows in many years, but back in the day adware would get itself bundled with native applications' installers - for example, you download and install Java on Windows, they try to trick you into installing a toolbar. Once your adware is installed as a native application, you simply install two copies, each of which immediately reinstalls and restarts the other should it get removed/stopped.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    This is a Chrome extension - they're supposed to be sandboxed, and unable to pull such tricks. If it really couldn't be uninstalled from the installed extensions list in Chrome, I'd love to know how they did it.