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What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

333 points by pg 14y ago

Last week there was some controversy online about a company we funded called InstallMonetizer. IM makes software that companies can put in their Windows installers that offers other software to the user as part of the install process. It's unclear exactly how much of a right we as investors have to tell the companies we fund what to do. But on the other hand we don't like the idea that someone we funded might be doing something illicit, so we felt like we should at least investigate the claims and if there was a problem, try to convince IM to fix it. Here's a list of things people said about IM or similar products, and what we discovered about each: 1. They make "drive-by installers." A drive-by installer installs software without the user's knowledge. This accusation is false. Other companies in this business do such things, but IM doesn't. Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button, and if the user declines, no software is installed. 2. The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things. 3. IM "monitors and uploads user’s ongoing usage activity of the bundled crapware." This fact is disclosed in the IM EULA (which admittedly probably no one reads), but more importantly isn't used for any money-making purpose. The usage info is (a) collected only for the first 30 minutes and (b) is only used to prove to the advertiser that the install is by a human and not a bot. 4. "This surprisingly includes not only IP but the globally unique MAC addresses." This information also isn't used for marketing purposes, only if advertisers request it to clear up discrepancies in dowload figures. We asked IM to switch to uploading hashes of the IP and MAC address instead, and they are going to start doing that. 5. Comments on HN mentioned that a lot of companies in this business wrap OSS in violation of the license terms. When we asked IM, they scanned their publishers and found that 6% of them were doing this. Those publishers have been banned from using IM, and all future publishers will be thoroughly screened for ownership of their software. 6. Comments on HN also pointed out that some apps installed by this type of installer are excessively hard to uninstall-- e.g. because when you try to uninstall them, they re-install themselves. This again is something that while common practice in this industry, IM won't do. They ban advertisers who do such things.

speeder 14y ago
Good to know that you did something about it PG :) I will remain liking your work! :) But please, keep paying attention... I think that sometimes if companies can get away with doing bad stuff, they will (in that case maybe it was not malicious, but getting IP and MAC addresses is kinda dangerous for example).
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  Doesn't sound like he did anything to me. We all know damn well that this is crapware, and the only people who install it are confused or just clicking through. Set the default to opt-out with no encouraging language and you'll see how much users really "want" it.
kposehn 14y ago
I kind of figured this from the get-go. I met them at Affiliate Summit and was quite impressed with them, so the controversy felt a little overblown at first glance. Glad to see they are the kind of people we can safely work with.
- 205guy 14y ago
  Go right ahead, since your profile says you're an affiliate marketer with an "eye for monetization."
SandB0x 14y ago
I think people will be wondering if this resembles the founders' ideas when they were funded by you, and if this represents the kind of company you wish to be funding. You may of course defend the product on technical grounds (accept buttons, EULAs, etc) but I find it hard to believe that you truly think it is anything but a nuisance to end-users.
- swampthing 14y ago
  Just because you or I might find something to be a nuisance, doesn't mean most end-users will. Done right, I can easily see unsophisticated end-users being appreciative at being offered useful software that they would otherwise have not known about. I see this crap on my mom's computer all the time - she's bothered by it only if it affects performance or pops up with some message. If it's just sitting there, or if she actually uses it, she couldn't care less how it got there.
  - watty 14y ago
    Do you really think "most end-users" prefer the stuff that IM installs? Come on.
    - swampthing 14y ago
      "Prefer" is a higher bar than "don't care" / "not a nuisance". I don't know what IM installs - but I see Norton on their webpage. I can easily see "most end-users" installing something, seeing the opportunity to install Norton Anti-Virus, and thinking to themselves "oh yea, that sounds like that'd be useful". Just about everybody on HN is extremely technically savvy - we can't assume that our computing preferences are shared by "most end-users". Note that I am just responding to the assertion that "it['s] hard to believe that [PG] truly think[s] it is anything but a nuisance to end-users".
      - TeMPOraL 14y ago
        Of what value to users can be a piece of software that they never heard of, don't know what it does and don't feel a need for it? Were they having a problem they wanted solved, they'd intentionally look for the software. > we can't assume that our computing preferences are shared by "most end-users". Those are still anecdotes, but I think most of us actually can say this or that about end-users preferences, after countless of hours spent on cleaning their computers. I for one think that calling it "nuisance" is a massive understatement.
yuhong 14y ago
Beware that IP addresses are only 32-bit and MAC addresses are only 48-bit. So hashing them individually won't do any good.
- TylerE 14y ago
  Concat them into a single 80 bit value and hash THAT however, and you should be more than fine. Even the 48 bit mac address alone is 281,474,976,710,656 possibilities, and thus likely rainbow-table proof, especially if salted.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    Perhaps worth noting that mac addresses do not have 48 bits of entropy. You can prioritize the OUIs actually being used in consumer NICs and chop that down substantially. IP addresses don't have 32 bits of entropy either for that matter.
    - TylerE 14y ago
      That's true. However, with adequate salting it really shouldn't matter.
      - heartbreak 14y ago
        I think the idea of the hash for IM is to prove uniqueness in a dispute. Salting the hash would make it useless in that case.
willwhitney 14y ago
While you may not have a right to tell the companies you fund what to do, you certainly have the right not to fund them. At the same time, you are running a for-profit business, and turning down a company you feel is likely to be successful isn't responsible to the other people involved in Y Combinator. And as far as I know, they could have entered the program with a different product and changed tacks partway through. All this to say that I do not have the right nor the information to question your professional decisions. Personally, though... is this a product you're proud of?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mehuln 14y ago
This is a company doing the right thing in these messy industry. They are growing and winning because they are playing by the rules and trying to do the right thing!
- api 14y ago
  This may be true. I don't think they're doing anything truly unethical -- if everything pg says is true -- and they may indeed be trying to bring some improvement to a sloppy and shady industry. That being said, this sort of thing is sort of depressing. It's representative of the ho-hum dregs of innovation being offered up by most startups, at least in the Internet sphere. If I didn't know better, and I don't, I'd say the net is showing signs of being stuck in a holding pattern. Yuck. All the interesting stuff seems to be in other areas: bio-medical, consumer devices, high-tech hobbyist stuff, and in the big ticket realm aerospace and transportation.
- moon_princess 14y ago
  are you a troll
holograham 14y ago
Thanks for this explanation pg This raises a question though: does this company make something that users want? When a user installs a specific program is he/she looking to install other software as well? Is the argument that InstallMonetizer bundles useful software that it feels will enhance the user's life in some way? (going off the adage that the consumer does not really know what they want i.e. they'd just ask for a faster horse)
- pg 14y ago
  In this case the users are the advertisers. Clicking on a decline button for other software they don't want (in the worst case) is for the end-users the price of getting software they do want.
  - josephlord 14y ago
    That isn't the worst case. The Windows using victim* could install something accidentally by careless clicking (the "Yes,Yes, Yes" Windows installer process). I recognise you are treading a fine line between defending a company you feel a duty to and practices and business model that you probably wouldn't select for Y-Combinator on the publicly visible business model. I hope they pivot to a less controversial model and leave you in a more comfortable place. * You are right that the users are the advertisers but that must make the person running the installer the victim or at best the product.
tomjen3 14y ago
>Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button, and if the user declines, no software is installed. Which is the default? Decline or accept?
- JohnsonB 14y ago
  This really is the key question. When installing an app, a user should just be able to breeze through the install wizard and not waste time on every screen reading to see if it may slip an unwanted install in.
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  About 95% of installs are from users who don't understand what they are doing. Of course they are going to make it opt-out by default. They will probably provide an option for advertises to choose opt-in, but that will be used in only about 1% of the cases since it cuts their profits by 20x
- guessWhy 14y ago
  "Agree". http://www.installmonetizer.com/AT_images/process.gif http://www.installmonetizer.com/AT_images/process.gif
dsl 14y ago
These guys have gotten a lot of flack they don't deserve. A friend of mine builds and distributes what most people would consider "crapware" (toolbars, adware, etc.) and was flat out denied by IM when he tried to use them for distribution. Sure a bad apple or two might slip through, but according to my friend its rare to ever be denied by a distributor unless you're not willing to pay going rates. It seems like they are working to clean up a dirty industry. Just like AdWords did to the PPC business.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  The best way to "clean up" a dirty industry that adds no value is to starve it until it dies.
  - yuhong 14y ago
    Why do you think it is impossible for it to add any value?
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Why does it add value?
- ddunkin 14y ago
  This industry sounds dirty by nature, you can't 'clean up' spammers or prostitution either. Just because a pimp won't sell his girl to just any old John, doesn't make the whole act any better. It's people in the middle trying to make money off of someone else's hard work. It is really simple, just don't attempt to trick users into installing stuff they didn't want to download in the first place (anything outside the bundle they chose to download). Additional steps on install only take away from the user experience and taint the experience of the application you are wrapping.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    To be fair, I don't think the prostitution analogy holds too well here. At least a prostitute is providing a service that there is legitimate demand for from the end user. You could also argue that one could "clean it up" by making it safer and better regulated. A more apt analogy might be drug dealers subsidising medication by cutting it with heroin.
glass- 14y ago
The vast majority of people are not deliberately choosing to install the software. They are "accepting" it by accident, by pressing the wrong button or because they are rushing through the installation and are not paying attention. No consumer wants this stuff. The advertiser's software is a nuisance and gives no advantages to the end-user.
- api 14y ago
  That's one of the hard things about advertising-- beyond an informative product announcement, most other advertising ranges from useless to annoying to the consumer. I know that I spend a certain amount of almost unconscious mental energy ignoring advertising, and any time I do research I have to sieve the results to filter out biased advertising-driven material. (It's particularly bad in health-related stuff.)
- yuhong 14y ago
  This doesn't mean pushing useful software isn't possible.
DoubleCluster 14y ago
> Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button Well, could you provide a screenshot of that screen? Usually users are misled into thinking they are accepting the install of the software they actually downloaded. > The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. Yeah... I don't think very highly of your opinion if you really think like that. Making someones computer slower or less usable by installing "unwanted software" is something that should be forbidden in my opinion. Really, do you have any idea how much hours of my life were lost by removing crapware from computers? I did check the ycombinator.com website for any indication if the type of company or product was of any concern. I did not find anything about that. This probably means ycombinator is actually just interested in the money and not in making the world a better place. Silly idealistic me...
- 205guy 14y ago
  Yes, I definitely think we need screenshots (too lazy to sign up and get them myself). There used to be a graphic on their website (gone now) that showed an offer looking like a decline/agree license page. Under it they claimed their text is optimized for conversions--in other words, getting people to click. Edited: the graphic isn't visible on their pages, but still available on their servers; see GuessWhy's comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093242 Also, if this company pitched a new product to the investors, and then used the funding, or at least the branding, to run their old product (especially one deemed spammy or scammy by a majority of HN readers), it sounds like this company has figured out how to game the angel investing game.
oh_sigh 14y ago
What about opt-in vs opt-out? Would this company be profitable if all of their toolbars were opt-in only? I'd be willing to bet a dollar that InstallMonetizer will tank if they relied on opt-in, but will make bank if they rely on opt-out.
- zaidf 14y ago
  InstallMonetizer will tank if they relied on opt-in, but will make bank if they rely on opt-out. Just like the US Postal Service if direct mailing was opt-in instead of opt-out. What's your point?
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    The point is that post is providing opt-out value for their users. Install bundlers are providing opt-out things their end-users don't want or wouldn't want if they understood what's going on.
    - zaidf 14y ago
      Can you clarify what you mean?
      - TeMPOraL 14y ago
        Please disregard that comment. I misunderstood the meaning of "direct mail" (I'm not from US). I apologize.
  - acheron 14y ago
    Of course, the USPS is tanking anyway...
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    The USPS is a public service. The public service is subsidized via direct mailings. If everyone opted out of direct mailings(or if direct mailings were opt-in), the USPS would continue to operate, only they would either charge much more to deliver posts, or they would be granted more subsidies from the taxpayers.
notJim 14y ago
I dunno, 1. and 2. seem like a cop out to me. When crappy freeware Windows installers provide a checkbox (checked by default, of course) to opt out of Bonzai Buddy or a million Ask.com toolbars or some bullshit malware scanner, they are still shitty and sketchy, and it's disappointing to me to know that YC is now behind a company that makes such software. And saying this crapware is popular does little to assuage my concerns. If users are "choosing" to install these things, it's unclear to me how informed or aware of a choice they're making. I bet successful viruses and worms are also popular by this metric. By the way, here's an example of what we're talking about: http://imgur.com/8SGXUPP http://imgur.com/8SGXUPP. Oracle bundles the ask toolbar with Java installs now. This is the default state, i.e., the box is default-checked. Why, users love the ask toolbar, they probably have a 95% install rate!
- tylermauthe 14y ago
  haha! Good point about the ask toolbar! Didn't think of that...
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Exactly, I always feel these "choices" are like being sold an extended warranty. It's presented as a choice but is "strongly recommended", non tech savvy users are likely not sure what "recommended" means in this context. Does it mean that the software might break my computer without it? Does it stop me getting a virus? Anybody who consciously decides that they want the ask toolbar on their computer can find the standalone download here: http://sp.ask.com/toolbar/install/apnasktoolbar/download.php http://sp.ask.com/toolbar/install/apnasktoolbar/download.php
  - niggler 14y ago
    The game is to get those people who aren't tech savvy, and PG knows and actively supports it. There literally is no way to do what IM is trying to do without somehow engaging in questionable behavior (reminiscent of Facebook in many ways)
    - ericd 14y ago
tylermauthe 14y ago
This is a great example of how to be a level headed, clear-minded investor/entrepreneur, even when you're under fire... And just generally a great human being. Good show!
moon_princess 14y ago
lmao really dude
withinrafael 14y ago
Paul, I'm one of the two people you're indirectly addressing with this HN post. (The second is Long Zheng.) I wrote here: http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-quietly-starts-editing-privacy-policy/ http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-qui... Long zheng wrote here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/ http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-fu... I'll respond to each of your items individually. 1. OK. 2. Maybe. Or more likely users are mistakenly installing these applications because the offer screen is made to look exactly like the EULA acceptance dialog seen in every other installer. But we don't expect this to be fixed. Anti-malware vendors have stepped in and are improving their definitions to catch this garbage but it's very much a cat/mouse game. (IM has been detected a few times, btw.) IM is very aware of this "threat" and designed their system around random domain names to mitigate detection issues as they arise. (Think about it -- Does IM, a legitimate company, really need to use fcgoatcalear.us and fcvalcsoi.us domain names? Come on.) 3. No idea where you got this information, given InstallMonetizer bundled software shows no actual EULA. The only EULAs shown during install are ones provided by the package author and the offer advertisers. Can you clarify this point, please? 4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy to note the new hashing procedures but sadly that doesn't cover the bundles on the Internet today. So it's wrong.) 5. Yeah, I saw the company slip in the "Open-source software is a community product and you may not use our co-bundles with it" line. What a slap in the face of those who use commercially-permissive OSS libraries in their software...
- pcl 14y ago
  4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy to note the new hashing procedures but sadly that doesn't cover the bundles on the Internet today. So it's wrong.) Note that Paul's response said that they "are going to start" uploading hashes.
  - withinrafael 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dpweb 14y ago
Some of you guys are being ignorant, and too much time on your hands. What IM is doing seems legit from all the information here. It's giving devs some opportunity to make a living. If you don't like the wares don't install it. Simple. If you were seriously concerned about internet privacy you'd be discussing in depth Google, Microsoft, etc.. policies which affect virtually all inet users and not some small operation like IM.
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > It's giving devs some opportunity to make a living. So does writing IT software for the Mafia.
- rhizome 14y ago
  An unfortunate choice of words: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seems-legit-sounds-legit http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seems-legit-sounds-legit
- illuminate 14y ago
  Is this intended to be persuasive? You're not doing your coworkers a service here.
wheelerwj 14y ago
thank you for taking the time to look into that!
kaeawc 14y ago
Glad to hear the follow up
dxdt 14y ago
Despite the defense of InstallMonetizer, their payment model and practices do not appear to be what you would find with a legitimate software business. InstallMonetizer has been used by malware as a method to make money as early as April 2011. It was being silently installed by a large botnet, and I assume that the botnet affiliate was making money off the installs. Their installers are also labeled as a malware by AV vendors, and treated as such by network monitoring infrastructure.
- holograham 14y ago
  my company's IA dept treats IM as malware FWIW...and we have industry leading IA/CND operations
kanzure 14y ago
"The usage info is (a) collected only for the first 30 minutes and (b) is only used to prove to the advertiser that the install is by a human and not a bot." Well that sounds easy to spoof.
RyanZAG 14y ago
Confusing inept users into installing random toolbars[1] that break their browsers and force them to call IT pros to 'clean up' their computers is pretty scummy. Sorry, but it is. You can make a lot of money doing all kinds of popular things -- pimping women, selling drugs, selling 'likes' on facebook, selling botnets that create fake clicks on advertisers, ponzi schemes, etc. Some are illegal, some are just barely legal, but they are all damaging to someone. This line of business is known as 'scummy' and InstallMonetizer is plain 'scummy'. Simple fact, trying to rationalize it doesn't help. [1] http://installmonetizer-review.blogspot.com/ http://installmonetizer-review.blogspot.com/ " 3. Which type of bundled software does Install Monetizer include in your installation package? Most of the bundled software are toolbars, though the company is always changing which software are available. When I first started Install Monetizer they offered just two softwares. A toolbar called White Smoke and good old Real Player. Today they have about seven install packages available. However, only USA Search and Facebook Profile turned profitable."
- garry 14y ago
  I installed these things from an Install Monetizer install on my own computer. I uninstalled them. They were all completely uninstallable. None of them broke my browser. IM actually screens out advertisers and publishers who break browsers, and they don't work with them. Seems better to me. As another commenter mentioned, IM is trying to legitimize a space that's scummy, the way Google did for PPC.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    So you're a YC partner defending this company. You also posted this in another thread, which was your own submission with a linkbait headline to your own blog, which was an obvious advertorial for Survata: "Survata is a survey-wall -- meaning you have to answer a survey before you see a given article. They have about 20 publishers signed up, and they're all non-spammy content." Survata is also YC funded. FYI, all survey walls are "spammy content" and the data from them is garbage. Installer bundles are spammy content. This is all scummy. Please stop funding these types of companies. And please stop with the borderline meatpuppet posts and plugs.
thoughtcriminal 14y ago
InstallMonetizer can't in good conscience offer Babylon translation satanware. Or, to put it another way, if they care one ioda about the enduser experience and staying in business, they should not add Babylon software to their bundle. Babylon is diabolically hard to uninstall. Even after following instructions found on a number of websites, trying different malware removers and doing about:config on Mozilla, it still keeps propagating - EVEN NOW, months later. I dare someone to install the Babylon software on their main PC and then try to remove it. Go ahead, follow instructions you find on the Internet. Good luck, you'll need it. It's an ugly, ugly piece of work.
- garry 14y ago
  I was able to totally remove Babylon from my system after installing it through an IM ad unit. I can't speak for installs from other sources, because I hear what you say is true. But I saw with my own eyes that it didn't happen with IM.
  - 205guy 14y ago
    Garry, you've spoken up a lot here to defend IM, and that's fine, they probably need defending. However, it would've been nice to disclose in this thread that you're a YC partner. I know, it's in your profile, and easy to find, as I did. But I'm a newbie here, I don't know personalities, and your posts made it sound like you're some Joe-User happy with IM's product, which isn't really the case.
    - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
      Haha, that explains it. Thanks for pointing that out. There are contrarians in every thread, but if there is one thing for certain besides death and taxes, it's the fact that nobody wants this garbage on their machines. It's the cancer of Windows. To see someone so adamantly defending it had me really confused.
ltcoleman 14y ago
I very much appreciate this response from pg. Y Combinator doesn't have to justify who it is funding in my opinion. This info was insightful to me. Thank you.
ddunkin 14y ago
You can stomp on the grey areas all you want on individual points, but you have to really look at the whole picture. What is the end result of the software they produce? Without marketing buzzwords thrown in to mask the true intentions? To bank on ignorant users and to leverage that ignorance to increase revenue. Same people who do the AV browser pop-ups designed to convince your grandma that 'your computer is infected', they are using the same tactics with a different costume. I actually spoke with a spammer last year (I'm sorry 'content distribution network' as they called themselves) and the double-speak was just infuriating, that was all I could think about when reading this.
thaumaturgy 14y ago
People pay businesses like mine to remove the sorts of software that IM bundles. From the end-user's perspective, they don't understand how this stuff gets on their computer, and they don't feel comfortable removing it because they don't want to break anything. Put another way: people "get" this software for free, and then pay other people to get rid of it. And then other scuzzy companies have built a niche industry around the "PC tune-up", prompted by stuff like this software, charging a lot of money to people who don't know better. And, often all these companies do is run software that has been specifically designed to remove junk software. A lot of this niche is exploitative, taking advantage of people who don't know better, and it's all supported by the bundling of this crap. That goes well beyond "opinion"; "opinion" might be, "Facebook is crap", but there isn't an entire market built around people paying other people to shut down Facebook accounts. Users aren't "choosing" to install these things any more than someone might "choose" to step on a pile of doggy doo in the park. IM really isn't your responsibility though, so thanks for getting them to flush out the OSS-wrapped stuff at least.
d0m 14y ago
All the technical details aside, if you guys at YC ask yourself "Am I proud of funding this startup?" we both know what the answer is. In all fairness, PG said that YC funded another project from this company; I guess they've just used the YC name for credibility. I find it quite ironic how PG went from building a spam filters to funding a spam company. Just for your information, this is what you've put your money and using your growth YC alumni for: http://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/blogg/wp-content/uploads2/2012/10/post-1-1160073179.jpeg http://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/blogg/wp-content/uploads2....
- davidroberts 14y ago
  I worked for a few months recently as a remote support agent for a big ISP, and many of my customer's browsers looked almost as bad as screenshot you posted. As I was cleaning up, I would ask them for each toolbar (because I was required to) "do you want me to remove this?" They would invariably reply "I don't know what it is or how it got there." I think this pretty much kills the "informed choice" rationalization. About the only toolbar they understood or wanted was Google, and maybe the one that came as part of the isp's setup package (because they were used to it).
dgunn 14y ago
In a few months, I will, once again, uninstall 10 tool bars from my mother's computer. She doesn't want them but they are all installed. Why? Because allowing users to opt out of installs is effectively the same as installing through a drive by process. This type of software is among the lowest form. Whether it's legit or not, the end result is a nuisance to users. I hope their new product isn't as seedy.
eCa 14y ago
As long as the choice to install (unwanted crap) or not is opt-out this can only be considered a bad-faith business.
watty 14y ago
PG, your funding a company who recommends users to install Bablyon which is considered a virus by many. Why don't you come out and tell it like it is? IM is a profitable business with potential to make you lots of $$. Stop the bullshit, it's making it worse.
davidpayne11 14y ago
"What we discovered about InstallMonetizer" 'We discovered that they are sneaky as fuck. But it's ok because we funded them.' - pg For the rest of the community - See what withinrafael has to say in his comments below and how unethical this start-up is. I for one, love YC. But such shitty tactics by start-ups and Paul defending them is terribly disappointing.
powrtoch 14y ago
I don't understand all the moralizing going on in this thread. VC is about funding the companies that could make a lot of money. When did we start expecting them to be the morality police? Sure, if YC wants to build up a reputation for funding "honorable" startups, then they can choose to do so (and will choose to do so to the extent that they think it makes business sense). The comments here that say "This might be bad for YC's image and hurt YC long term" are all well and good. But lots of them amount to "this is bad and you should feel bad", and these just seem disconnected from the reality of market economics. If YC doesn't fund some scuzzy but profitable company, someone else will. You can't solve job-outsourcing by asking companies not to outsource jobs, because the companies that play along will just get their asses kicked by those who don't. If you want to solve this problem, you have to do it at some other level (usually the laws and taxes level). It's unreasonable to demand that YC pass on profitable businesses just because we don't like what those businesses are doing. I agree that IM doesn't seem to be making the world a better place, but that's not a problem that gets fixed by asking everyone to cooperate in starving them out. Perhaps there's a line at which it's worthwhile to call out people for following the incentives that the market has given them, but I think this line is probably a lot closer to the "murder" end of the spectrum than the "installer checkboxes" end. (Expecting downvotes, think I'm okay with that.)
- ricw 14y ago
  If IM would be solving a problem, I would agree. Unfortunately it is crapware. Crap. Ware. It is not solving a problem. It is making the world a worse place. Maybe they should start Investing into viruses?! where does this end? It's something I wouldn't expect of pg and yc. It's simply immoral and shit behaviour. Divest or be disgraced!
  - seanlinehan 14y ago
    Classic straw man argument. Viruses are illegal in almost every case and thus clearly they should not, and will not, invest in viruses. Not that I support IM, but they are solving a clear and distinct problem: software is hard to monetize.
tomp 14y ago
Consider for a minute that one of the biggest successes in the past few years have been "crapware", e.g. Talking Tom, Draw with me (or something similar), and iFog/Fart.
lucb1e 14y ago
In response to point #2: Glad to hear you'll be choosing to install my new search toolbar! Did you know it comes with free 3D smileys? Really though, if you weren't one of the criticized parties (for funding them), would you really think the same about points two and three? And even bothered to point out the first? Regardless of whether you should have funded them, your post sounds rather biased.
rdl 14y ago
This seems like a pretty fair analysis -- both fair to the users/ecosystem as a whole, and fair to a portfolio company that you invested in.
photon137 14y ago
Extremely disappointed. If integrity in all aspects of a business is a lower priority than growth, then I don't suppose there is any difference between Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors anymore. Questionable practices should be just that - questionable - and remain that way. This "ironing" over by stalwarts like pg poses the danger of this stuff becoming the norm over time.
donniezazen 14y ago
The standard practice of making decline option available is a nice way of deceiving non-technologically inclined users. But IM and related companies are here to make money. Most of the above points are the way how it works in Windows ecosystem.
yuhong 14y ago
Also see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086148 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086148
Eduard 14y ago
"We asked IM to switch to uploading hashes of the IP and MAC address instead, and they are going to start doing that." ... c:
pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>They make "drive-by installers." A drive-by installer installs software without the user's knowledge. This accusation is false. // Nope. A drive-by installer installs software without _express_ consent of the user. A default of accept or a checked "install" checkbox for a bundled product that is not labelled directly as the software being installed (ie you clicked a download link and it said SoftwareX) then it's a drive-by. Adobe are doing this now. Last straw, if Adobe Readers vast girth wasn't enough well this certainly is. Either the download must say "StuffYouWant.exe with CrapwareBloat.exe" or the installation of the later must only be done by non-default action. If these conditions aren't met then it's a drive-by installer and those consciously profiting from it need to check their morals.
eps 14y ago
Woah. This is so off, so disappointing. Petty defence on technicalities, while stepping around absolutely bloody obvious ethical issues. Wow.
charlieok 14y ago
So far I have read nothing about this except for pg's post creating this thread. Having read only that, I am certain that I am not in whatever target market might appreciate IM's software (“A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us”) and that I would hope that I never encounter it myself. That said, I would likely enjoy an encounter with some other software from “this industry” far less still.
andrewhillman 14y ago
By default add-ons should be unchecked. I always get calls from my parents (this weekend with an AVG download) when they realize they downloaded a service and now they have extra services they did not want - toolbars among other things... it becomes my problem and it sucks.
JungleGymSam 14y ago
You can explain it any way you want but it's still a product that's meant to take advantage of an ignorant audience plain and simple. Any person outside their audience knows where and how to get the software they want. There is no use for IM's service outside of the ignorant mass of computer users. Consider another angle on this software: it is a direct contributor to the daily stress of IT people and the "computer person" found in many families.
SparrowOS 14y ago
I don't like your attitude. God says... C:\Text\2CITIES.TXT nded by the shining Bull's Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terrac
hugbox 14y ago
The Windows app culture has really deteriorated. Even Oracle has started distributing malware with their Java installer. Applications that phone home, reboot the computer at random times, and modify system settings are not only tolerated, but expected. It's hard to imagine a real-world parallel to this kind of behavior. It would be like if rape was a socially acceptable form of greeting. In the future, I think all of this will give Microsoft a perfect excuse to shut down the independent application developers and force everything through their app store. Companies that develop for Windows better start thinking hard about their relationship with Microsoft.
gadders 14y ago
Fair play for responding. I still think the whole area is (for want of a better word) kind of scuzzy.

333 points by pg 14y ago

speeder 14y ago

Good to know that you did something about it PG :) I will remain liking your work! :) But please, keep paying attention... I think that sometimes if companies can get away with doing bad stuff, they will (in that case maybe it was not malicious, but getting IP and MAC addresses is kinda dangerous for example).

lawnchair_larry 14y ago
Doesn't sound like he did anything to me. We all know damn well that this is crapware, and the only people who install it are confused or just clicking through. Set the default to opt-out with no encouraging language and you'll see how much users really "want" it.

kposehn 14y ago

I kind of figured this from the get-go. I met them at Affiliate Summit and was quite impressed with them, so the controversy felt a little overblown at first glance. Glad to see they are the kind of people we can safely work with.

205guy 14y ago
Go right ahead, since your profile says you're an affiliate marketer with an "eye for monetization."

SandB0x 14y ago

I think people will be wondering if this resembles the founders' ideas when they were funded by you, and if this represents the kind of company you wish to be funding. You may of course defend the product on technical grounds (accept buttons, EULAs, etc) but I find it hard to believe that you truly think it is anything but a nuisance to end-users.

swampthing 14y ago
Just because you or I might find something to be a nuisance, doesn't mean most end-users will. Done right, I can easily see unsophisticated end-users being appreciative at being offered useful software that they would otherwise have not known about. I see this crap on my mom's computer all the time - she's bothered by it only if it affects performance or pops up with some message. If it's just sitting there, or if she actually uses it, she couldn't care less how it got there.
- watty 14y ago
  Do you really think "most end-users" prefer the stuff that IM installs? Come on.
  - swampthing 14y ago
    "Prefer" is a higher bar than "don't care" / "not a nuisance". I don't know what IM installs - but I see Norton on their webpage. I can easily see "most end-users" installing something, seeing the opportunity to install Norton Anti-Virus, and thinking to themselves "oh yea, that sounds like that'd be useful". Just about everybody on HN is extremely technically savvy - we can't assume that our computing preferences are shared by "most end-users". Note that I am just responding to the assertion that "it['s] hard to believe that [PG] truly think[s] it is anything but a nuisance to end-users".
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      Of what value to users can be a piece of software that they never heard of, don't know what it does and don't feel a need for it? Were they having a problem they wanted solved, they'd intentionally look for the software. > we can't assume that our computing preferences are shared by "most end-users". Those are still anecdotes, but I think most of us actually can say this or that about end-users preferences, after countless of hours spent on cleaning their computers. I for one think that calling it "nuisance" is a massive understatement.

yuhong 14y ago

Beware that IP addresses are only 32-bit and MAC addresses are only 48-bit. So hashing them individually won't do any good.

TylerE 14y ago
Concat them into a single 80 bit value and hash THAT however, and you should be more than fine. Even the 48 bit mac address alone is 281,474,976,710,656 possibilities, and thus likely rainbow-table proof, especially if salted.
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  Perhaps worth noting that mac addresses do not have 48 bits of entropy. You can prioritize the OUIs actually being used in consumer NICs and chop that down substantially. IP addresses don't have 32 bits of entropy either for that matter.
  - TylerE 14y ago
    That's true. However, with adequate salting it really shouldn't matter.
    - heartbreak 14y ago
      I think the idea of the hash for IM is to prove uniqueness in a dispute. Salting the hash would make it useless in that case.

willwhitney 14y ago

While you may not have a right to tell the companies you fund what to do, you certainly have the right not to fund them. At the same time, you are running a for-profit business, and turning down a company you feel is likely to be successful isn't responsible to the other people involved in Y Combinator. And as far as I know, they could have entered the program with a different product and changed tacks partway through. All this to say that I do not have the right nor the information to question your professional decisions. Personally, though... is this a product you're proud of?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mehuln 14y ago

This is a company doing the right thing in these messy industry. They are growing and winning because they are playing by the rules and trying to do the right thing!

api 14y ago
This may be true. I don't think they're doing anything truly unethical -- if everything pg says is true -- and they may indeed be trying to bring some improvement to a sloppy and shady industry. That being said, this sort of thing is sort of depressing. It's representative of the ho-hum dregs of innovation being offered up by most startups, at least in the Internet sphere. If I didn't know better, and I don't, I'd say the net is showing signs of being stuck in a holding pattern. Yuck. All the interesting stuff seems to be in other areas: bio-medical, consumer devices, high-tech hobbyist stuff, and in the big ticket realm aerospace and transportation.
moon_princess 14y ago
are you a troll

holograham 14y ago

Thanks for this explanation pg This raises a question though: does this company make something that users want? When a user installs a specific program is he/she looking to install other software as well? Is the argument that InstallMonetizer bundles useful software that it feels will enhance the user's life in some way? (going off the adage that the consumer does not really know what they want i.e. they'd just ask for a faster horse)

pg 14y ago
In this case the users are the advertisers. Clicking on a decline button for other software they don't want (in the worst case) is for the end-users the price of getting software they do want.
- josephlord 14y ago
  That isn't the worst case. The Windows using victim* could install something accidentally by careless clicking (the "Yes,Yes, Yes" Windows installer process). I recognise you are treading a fine line between defending a company you feel a duty to and practices and business model that you probably wouldn't select for Y-Combinator on the publicly visible business model. I hope they pivot to a less controversial model and leave you in a more comfortable place. * You are right that the users are the advertisers but that must make the person running the installer the victim or at best the product.

tomjen3 14y ago

>Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button, and if the user declines, no software is installed. Which is the default? Decline or accept?

JohnsonB 14y ago
This really is the key question. When installing an app, a user should just be able to breeze through the install wizard and not waste time on every screen reading to see if it may slip an unwanted install in.
oh_sigh 14y ago
About 95% of installs are from users who don't understand what they are doing. Of course they are going to make it opt-out by default. They will probably provide an option for advertises to choose opt-in, but that will be used in only about 1% of the cases since it cuts their profits by 20x
guessWhy 14y ago
"Agree". http://www.installmonetizer.com/AT_images/process.gif http://www.installmonetizer.com/AT_images/process.gif

dsl 14y ago

These guys have gotten a lot of flack they don't deserve. A friend of mine builds and distributes what most people would consider "crapware" (toolbars, adware, etc.) and was flat out denied by IM when he tried to use them for distribution. Sure a bad apple or two might slip through, but according to my friend its rare to ever be denied by a distributor unless you're not willing to pay going rates. It seems like they are working to clean up a dirty industry. Just like AdWords did to the PPC business.

jiggy2011 14y ago
The best way to "clean up" a dirty industry that adds no value is to starve it until it dies.
- yuhong 14y ago
  Why do you think it is impossible for it to add any value?
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    Why does it add value?
ddunkin 14y ago
This industry sounds dirty by nature, you can't 'clean up' spammers or prostitution either. Just because a pimp won't sell his girl to just any old John, doesn't make the whole act any better. It's people in the middle trying to make money off of someone else's hard work. It is really simple, just don't attempt to trick users into installing stuff they didn't want to download in the first place (anything outside the bundle they chose to download). Additional steps on install only take away from the user experience and taint the experience of the application you are wrapping.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  To be fair, I don't think the prostitution analogy holds too well here. At least a prostitute is providing a service that there is legitimate demand for from the end user. You could also argue that one could "clean it up" by making it safer and better regulated. A more apt analogy might be drug dealers subsidising medication by cutting it with heroin.

glass- 14y ago

The vast majority of people are not deliberately choosing to install the software. They are "accepting" it by accident, by pressing the wrong button or because they are rushing through the installation and are not paying attention. No consumer wants this stuff. The advertiser's software is a nuisance and gives no advantages to the end-user.

api 14y ago
That's one of the hard things about advertising-- beyond an informative product announcement, most other advertising ranges from useless to annoying to the consumer. I know that I spend a certain amount of almost unconscious mental energy ignoring advertising, and any time I do research I have to sieve the results to filter out biased advertising-driven material. (It's particularly bad in health-related stuff.)
yuhong 14y ago
This doesn't mean pushing useful software isn't possible.

DoubleCluster 14y ago

> Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button Well, could you provide a screenshot of that screen? Usually users are misled into thinking they are accepting the install of the software they actually downloaded. > The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. Yeah... I don't think very highly of your opinion if you really think like that. Making someones computer slower or less usable by installing "unwanted software" is something that should be forbidden in my opinion. Really, do you have any idea how much hours of my life were lost by removing crapware from computers? I did check the ycombinator.com website for any indication if the type of company or product was of any concern. I did not find anything about that. This probably means ycombinator is actually just interested in the money and not in making the world a better place. Silly idealistic me...

205guy 14y ago
Yes, I definitely think we need screenshots (too lazy to sign up and get them myself). There used to be a graphic on their website (gone now) that showed an offer looking like a decline/agree license page. Under it they claimed their text is optimized for conversions--in other words, getting people to click. Edited: the graphic isn't visible on their pages, but still available on their servers; see GuessWhy's comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5093242 Also, if this company pitched a new product to the investors, and then used the funding, or at least the branding, to run their old product (especially one deemed spammy or scammy by a majority of HN readers), it sounds like this company has figured out how to game the angel investing game.

oh_sigh 14y ago

What about opt-in vs opt-out? Would this company be profitable if all of their toolbars were opt-in only? I'd be willing to bet a dollar that InstallMonetizer will tank if they relied on opt-in, but will make bank if they rely on opt-out.

zaidf 14y ago
InstallMonetizer will tank if they relied on opt-in, but will make bank if they rely on opt-out. Just like the US Postal Service if direct mailing was opt-in instead of opt-out. What's your point?
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  The point is that post is providing opt-out value for their users. Install bundlers are providing opt-out things their end-users don't want or wouldn't want if they understood what's going on.
  - zaidf 14y ago
    Can you clarify what you mean?
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      Please disregard that comment. I misunderstood the meaning of "direct mail" (I'm not from US). I apologize.
- acheron 14y ago
  Of course, the USPS is tanking anyway...
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  The USPS is a public service. The public service is subsidized via direct mailings. If everyone opted out of direct mailings(or if direct mailings were opt-in), the USPS would continue to operate, only they would either charge much more to deliver posts, or they would be granted more subsidies from the taxpayers.

notJim 14y ago

I dunno, 1. and 2. seem like a cop out to me. When crappy freeware Windows installers provide a checkbox (checked by default, of course) to opt out of Bonzai Buddy or a million Ask.com toolbars or some bullshit malware scanner, they are still shitty and sketchy, and it's disappointing to me to know that YC is now behind a company that makes such software. And saying this crapware is popular does little to assuage my concerns. If users are "choosing" to install these things, it's unclear to me how informed or aware of a choice they're making. I bet successful viruses and worms are also popular by this metric. By the way, here's an example of what we're talking about: http://imgur.com/8SGXUPP http://imgur.com/8SGXUPP. Oracle bundles the ask toolbar with Java installs now. This is the default state, i.e., the box is default-checked. Why, users love the ask toolbar, they probably have a 95% install rate!

tylermauthe 14y ago
haha! Good point about the ask toolbar! Didn't think of that...
jiggy2011 14y ago
Exactly, I always feel these "choices" are like being sold an extended warranty. It's presented as a choice but is "strongly recommended", non tech savvy users are likely not sure what "recommended" means in this context. Does it mean that the software might break my computer without it? Does it stop me getting a virus? Anybody who consciously decides that they want the ask toolbar on their computer can find the standalone download here: http://sp.ask.com/toolbar/install/apnasktoolbar/download.php http://sp.ask.com/toolbar/install/apnasktoolbar/download.php
- niggler 14y ago
  The game is to get those people who aren't tech savvy, and PG knows and actively supports it. There literally is no way to do what IM is trying to do without somehow engaging in questionable behavior (reminiscent of Facebook in many ways)
  - ericd 14y ago

tylermauthe 14y ago

This is a great example of how to be a level headed, clear-minded investor/entrepreneur, even when you're under fire... And just generally a great human being. Good show!

moon_princess 14y ago

lmao really dude

withinrafael 14y ago

Paul, I'm one of the two people you're indirectly addressing with this HN post. (The second is Long Zheng.) I wrote here: http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-quietly-starts-editing-privacy-policy/ http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-qui... Long zheng wrote here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/ http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-fu... I'll respond to each of your items individually. 1. OK. 2. Maybe. Or more likely users are mistakenly installing these applications because the offer screen is made to look exactly like the EULA acceptance dialog seen in every other installer. But we don't expect this to be fixed. Anti-malware vendors have stepped in and are improving their definitions to catch this garbage but it's very much a cat/mouse game. (IM has been detected a few times, btw.) IM is very aware of this "threat" and designed their system around random domain names to mitigate detection issues as they arise. (Think about it -- Does IM, a legitimate company, really need to use fcgoatcalear.us and fcvalcsoi.us domain names? Come on.) 3. No idea where you got this information, given InstallMonetizer bundled software shows no actual EULA. The only EULAs shown during install are ones provided by the package author and the offer advertisers. Can you clarify this point, please? 4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy to note the new hashing procedures but sadly that doesn't cover the bundles on the Internet today. So it's wrong.) 5. Yeah, I saw the company slip in the "Open-source software is a community product and you may not use our co-bundles with it" line. What a slap in the face of those who use commercially-permissive OSS libraries in their software...

pcl 14y ago
4. Wrong. Existing IM bundles out there still send PII in the clear. This isn't something they can just flip a switch on and fix. (I saw IM edited their privacy policy to note the new hashing procedures but sadly that doesn't cover the bundles on the Internet today. So it's wrong.) Note that Paul's response said that they "are going to start" uploading hashes.
- withinrafael 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dpweb 14y ago

Some of you guys are being ignorant, and too much time on your hands. What IM is doing seems legit from all the information here. It's giving devs some opportunity to make a living. If you don't like the wares don't install it. Simple. If you were seriously concerned about internet privacy you'd be discussing in depth Google, Microsoft, etc.. policies which affect virtually all inet users and not some small operation like IM.

ceejayoz 14y ago
> It's giving devs some opportunity to make a living. So does writing IT software for the Mafia.
rhizome 14y ago
An unfortunate choice of words: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seems-legit-sounds-legit http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/seems-legit-sounds-legit
illuminate 14y ago
Is this intended to be persuasive? You're not doing your coworkers a service here.

wheelerwj 14y ago

thank you for taking the time to look into that!

kaeawc 14y ago

Glad to hear the follow up

dxdt 14y ago

Despite the defense of InstallMonetizer, their payment model and practices do not appear to be what you would find with a legitimate software business. InstallMonetizer has been used by malware as a method to make money as early as April 2011. It was being silently installed by a large botnet, and I assume that the botnet affiliate was making money off the installs. Their installers are also labeled as a malware by AV vendors, and treated as such by network monitoring infrastructure.

holograham 14y ago
my company's IA dept treats IM as malware FWIW...and we have industry leading IA/CND operations

kanzure 14y ago

"The usage info is (a) collected only for the first 30 minutes and (b) is only used to prove to the advertiser that the install is by a human and not a bot." Well that sounds easy to spoof.

RyanZAG 14y ago

Confusing inept users into installing random toolbars[1] that break their browsers and force them to call IT pros to 'clean up' their computers is pretty scummy. Sorry, but it is. You can make a lot of money doing all kinds of popular things -- pimping women, selling drugs, selling 'likes' on facebook, selling botnets that create fake clicks on advertisers, ponzi schemes, etc. Some are illegal, some are just barely legal, but they are all damaging to someone. This line of business is known as 'scummy' and InstallMonetizer is plain 'scummy'. Simple fact, trying to rationalize it doesn't help. [1] http://installmonetizer-review.blogspot.com/ http://installmonetizer-review.blogspot.com/ " 3. Which type of bundled software does Install Monetizer include in your installation package? Most of the bundled software are toolbars, though the company is always changing which software are available. When I first started Install Monetizer they offered just two softwares. A toolbar called White Smoke and good old Real Player. Today they have about seven install packages available. However, only USA Search and Facebook Profile turned profitable."

garry 14y ago
I installed these things from an Install Monetizer install on my own computer. I uninstalled them. They were all completely uninstallable. None of them broke my browser. IM actually screens out advertisers and publishers who break browsers, and they don't work with them. Seems better to me. As another commenter mentioned, IM is trying to legitimize a space that's scummy, the way Google did for PPC.
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  So you're a YC partner defending this company. You also posted this in another thread, which was your own submission with a linkbait headline to your own blog, which was an obvious advertorial for Survata: "Survata is a survey-wall -- meaning you have to answer a survey before you see a given article. They have about 20 publishers signed up, and they're all non-spammy content." Survata is also YC funded. FYI, all survey walls are "spammy content" and the data from them is garbage. Installer bundles are spammy content. This is all scummy. Please stop funding these types of companies. And please stop with the borderline meatpuppet posts and plugs.

thoughtcriminal 14y ago

InstallMonetizer can't in good conscience offer Babylon translation satanware. Or, to put it another way, if they care one ioda about the enduser experience and staying in business, they should not add Babylon software to their bundle. Babylon is diabolically hard to uninstall. Even after following instructions found on a number of websites, trying different malware removers and doing about:config on Mozilla, it still keeps propagating - EVEN NOW, months later. I dare someone to install the Babylon software on their main PC and then try to remove it. Go ahead, follow instructions you find on the Internet. Good luck, you'll need it. It's an ugly, ugly piece of work.

garry 14y ago
I was able to totally remove Babylon from my system after installing it through an IM ad unit. I can't speak for installs from other sources, because I hear what you say is true. But I saw with my own eyes that it didn't happen with IM.
- 205guy 14y ago
  Garry, you've spoken up a lot here to defend IM, and that's fine, they probably need defending. However, it would've been nice to disclose in this thread that you're a YC partner. I know, it's in your profile, and easy to find, as I did. But I'm a newbie here, I don't know personalities, and your posts made it sound like you're some Joe-User happy with IM's product, which isn't really the case.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    Haha, that explains it. Thanks for pointing that out. There are contrarians in every thread, but if there is one thing for certain besides death and taxes, it's the fact that nobody wants this garbage on their machines. It's the cancer of Windows. To see someone so adamantly defending it had me really confused.

ltcoleman 14y ago

I very much appreciate this response from pg. Y Combinator doesn't have to justify who it is funding in my opinion. This info was insightful to me. Thank you.

ddunkin 14y ago

You can stomp on the grey areas all you want on individual points, but you have to really look at the whole picture. What is the end result of the software they produce? Without marketing buzzwords thrown in to mask the true intentions? To bank on ignorant users and to leverage that ignorance to increase revenue. Same people who do the AV browser pop-ups designed to convince your grandma that 'your computer is infected', they are using the same tactics with a different costume. I actually spoke with a spammer last year (I'm sorry 'content distribution network' as they called themselves) and the double-speak was just infuriating, that was all I could think about when reading this.

thaumaturgy 14y ago

People pay businesses like mine to remove the sorts of software that IM bundles. From the end-user's perspective, they don't understand how this stuff gets on their computer, and they don't feel comfortable removing it because they don't want to break anything. Put another way: people "get" this software for free, and then pay other people to get rid of it. And then other scuzzy companies have built a niche industry around the "PC tune-up", prompted by stuff like this software, charging a lot of money to people who don't know better. And, often all these companies do is run software that has been specifically designed to remove junk software. A lot of this niche is exploitative, taking advantage of people who don't know better, and it's all supported by the bundling of this crap. That goes well beyond "opinion"; "opinion" might be, "Facebook is crap", but there isn't an entire market built around people paying other people to shut down Facebook accounts. Users aren't "choosing" to install these things any more than someone might "choose" to step on a pile of doggy doo in the park. IM really isn't your responsibility though, so thanks for getting them to flush out the OSS-wrapped stuff at least.

d0m 14y ago

All the technical details aside, if you guys at YC ask yourself "Am I proud of funding this startup?" we both know what the answer is. In all fairness, PG said that YC funded another project from this company; I guess they've just used the YC name for credibility. I find it quite ironic how PG went from building a spam filters to funding a spam company. Just for your information, this is what you've put your money and using your growth YC alumni for: http://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/blogg/wp-content/uploads2/2012/10/post-1-1160073179.jpeg http://www.kraftfuttermischwerk.de/blogg/wp-content/uploads2....

davidroberts 14y ago
I worked for a few months recently as a remote support agent for a big ISP, and many of my customer's browsers looked almost as bad as screenshot you posted. As I was cleaning up, I would ask them for each toolbar (because I was required to) "do you want me to remove this?" They would invariably reply "I don't know what it is or how it got there." I think this pretty much kills the "informed choice" rationalization. About the only toolbar they understood or wanted was Google, and maybe the one that came as part of the isp's setup package (because they were used to it).

dgunn 14y ago

In a few months, I will, once again, uninstall 10 tool bars from my mother's computer. She doesn't want them but they are all installed. Why? Because allowing users to opt out of installs is effectively the same as installing through a drive by process. This type of software is among the lowest form. Whether it's legit or not, the end result is a nuisance to users. I hope their new product isn't as seedy.

eCa 14y ago

As long as the choice to install (unwanted crap) or not is opt-out this can only be considered a bad-faith business.

watty 14y ago

PG, your funding a company who recommends users to install Bablyon which is considered a virus by many. Why don't you come out and tell it like it is? IM is a profitable business with potential to make you lots of $$. Stop the bullshit, it's making it worse.

davidpayne11 14y ago

"What we discovered about InstallMonetizer" 'We discovered that they are sneaky as fuck. But it's ok because we funded them.' - pg For the rest of the community - See what withinrafael has to say in his comments below and how unethical this start-up is. I for one, love YC. But such shitty tactics by start-ups and Paul defending them is terribly disappointing.

powrtoch 14y ago

I don't understand all the moralizing going on in this thread. VC is about funding the companies that could make a lot of money. When did we start expecting them to be the morality police? Sure, if YC wants to build up a reputation for funding "honorable" startups, then they can choose to do so (and will choose to do so to the extent that they think it makes business sense). The comments here that say "This might be bad for YC's image and hurt YC long term" are all well and good. But lots of them amount to "this is bad and you should feel bad", and these just seem disconnected from the reality of market economics. If YC doesn't fund some scuzzy but profitable company, someone else will. You can't solve job-outsourcing by asking companies not to outsource jobs, because the companies that play along will just get their asses kicked by those who don't. If you want to solve this problem, you have to do it at some other level (usually the laws and taxes level). It's unreasonable to demand that YC pass on profitable businesses just because we don't like what those businesses are doing. I agree that IM doesn't seem to be making the world a better place, but that's not a problem that gets fixed by asking everyone to cooperate in starving them out. Perhaps there's a line at which it's worthwhile to call out people for following the incentives that the market has given them, but I think this line is probably a lot closer to the "murder" end of the spectrum than the "installer checkboxes" end. (Expecting downvotes, think I'm okay with that.)

ricw 14y ago
If IM would be solving a problem, I would agree. Unfortunately it is crapware. Crap. Ware. It is not solving a problem. It is making the world a worse place. Maybe they should start Investing into viruses?! where does this end? It's something I wouldn't expect of pg and yc. It's simply immoral and shit behaviour. Divest or be disgraced!
- seanlinehan 14y ago
  Classic straw man argument. Viruses are illegal in almost every case and thus clearly they should not, and will not, invest in viruses. Not that I support IM, but they are solving a clear and distinct problem: software is hard to monetize.

tomp 14y ago

Consider for a minute that one of the biggest successes in the past few years have been "crapware", e.g. Talking Tom, Draw with me (or something similar), and iFog/Fart.

lucb1e 14y ago

In response to point #2: Glad to hear you'll be choosing to install my new search toolbar! Did you know it comes with free 3D smileys? Really though, if you weren't one of the criticized parties (for funding them), would you really think the same about points two and three? And even bothered to point out the first? Regardless of whether you should have funded them, your post sounds rather biased.

rdl 14y ago

This seems like a pretty fair analysis -- both fair to the users/ecosystem as a whole, and fair to a portfolio company that you invested in.

photon137 14y ago

Extremely disappointed. If integrity in all aspects of a business is a lower priority than growth, then I don't suppose there is any difference between Wall Street and Silicon Valley investors anymore. Questionable practices should be just that - questionable - and remain that way. This "ironing" over by stalwarts like pg poses the danger of this stuff becoming the norm over time.

donniezazen 14y ago

The standard practice of making decline option available is a nice way of deceiving non-technologically inclined users. But IM and related companies are here to make money. Most of the above points are the way how it works in Windows ecosystem.

yuhong 14y ago

Also see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086148 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5086148

Eduard 14y ago

"We asked IM to switch to uploading hashes of the IP and MAC address instead, and they are going to start doing that." ... c:

pbhjpbhj 14y ago

>They make "drive-by installers." A drive-by installer installs software without the user's knowledge. This accusation is false. // Nope. A drive-by installer installs software without _express_ consent of the user. A default of accept or a checked "install" checkbox for a bundled product that is not labelled directly as the software being installed (ie you clicked a download link and it said SoftwareX) then it's a drive-by. Adobe are doing this now. Last straw, if Adobe Readers vast girth wasn't enough well this certainly is. Either the download must say "StuffYouWant.exe with CrapwareBloat.exe" or the installation of the later must only be done by non-default action. If these conditions aren't met then it's a drive-by installer and those consciously profiting from it need to check their morals.

eps 14y ago

Woah. This is so off, so disappointing. Petty defence on technicalities, while stepping around absolutely bloody obvious ethical issues. Wow.

charlieok 14y ago

So far I have read nothing about this except for pg's post creating this thread. Having read only that, I am certain that I am not in whatever target market might appreciate IM's software (“A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us”) and that I would hope that I never encounter it myself. That said, I would likely enjoy an encounter with some other software from “this industry” far less still.

andrewhillman 14y ago

By default add-ons should be unchecked. I always get calls from my parents (this weekend with an AVG download) when they realize they downloaded a service and now they have extra services they did not want - toolbars among other things... it becomes my problem and it sucks.

JungleGymSam 14y ago

You can explain it any way you want but it's still a product that's meant to take advantage of an ignorant audience plain and simple. Any person outside their audience knows where and how to get the software they want. There is no use for IM's service outside of the ignorant mass of computer users. Consider another angle on this software: it is a direct contributor to the daily stress of IT people and the "computer person" found in many families.

SparrowOS 14y ago

I don't like your attitude. God says... C:\Text\2CITIES.TXT nded by the shining Bull's Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terrac

hugbox 14y ago

The Windows app culture has really deteriorated. Even Oracle has started distributing malware with their Java installer. Applications that phone home, reboot the computer at random times, and modify system settings are not only tolerated, but expected. It's hard to imagine a real-world parallel to this kind of behavior. It would be like if rape was a socially acceptable form of greeting. In the future, I think all of this will give Microsoft a perfect excuse to shut down the independent application developers and force everything through their app store. Companies that develop for Windows better start thinking hard about their relationship with Microsoft.

gadders 14y ago

Fair play for responding. I still think the whole area is (for want of a better word) kind of scuzzy.