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Direct Revenue is a New York City company founded in 2002, known for creating spyware or adware programs.
Direct Revenue includes Soho Digital and Soho Digital International.
Management team
- Jean-Philippe Maheu: CEO
- Joshua Abram: EVP, Business Development (previously CEO)
- Daniel Kaufman: EVP, Corporate Development
- Alan Murray: Chief Product Officer
- Rodney Hook: CTO (previous CTO was Dan Doman)
- Andrew Reiskind: General Council, Chief Privacy Officer
- Josh Engroff: VP, US Revenue Operations
- Chris Dowhan: VP, Distribution
- Mattias Stanghed: VP, Product Development
History
In November 2004, Avenue Media filed a lawsuit against Direct Revenue for deleting Avenue Media's Internet Optimizer program from user's computers. *
In January 2005, Direct Revenue was involved in a controversy over installation with Windows Media Player files. *
In February 2005, the Avenue Media lawsuit was dropped with a non-public settlement. *
In April 2005, a class action lawsuit was filed against Direct Revenue by attorney David J. Fish. *
In June 2005, Direct Revenue filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Direct Revenue was also involved in a controversy over BitTorrent distribution.[http://www.vitalsecurity.org/2005/06/aurora-install-source-revealed-and-175.html
In July 2005, Direct Revenue was involved in a controversy over installation with MSN Messenger worms. *
In August 2005, judge Robert W. Gettleman allowed the class action lawsuit to proceed. Direct Revenue was also involved in a controversy over installation at a child porn site. [http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/spywarekiddie-pornspam-zombie.html
In September 2005, Direct Revenue ended Third-Party Affiliate Distribution of its adware client. *
In October 2005 Direct Revenue entered an agreement to distribute its adware client with Kazaa. *
On April 4, 2006, New York state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer filed suit against DirectRevenue in New York County Supreme Court, alleging that the company's software violates New York's General Business Law with its "drive-by downloads". *
Programs created
Aurora
Released April 2005 Aurora is an adware client most infamous for the nail.exe component. *
- Filenames with descriptions like "System Startup Service" or svcproc.exe, which could sound like important parts of Windows to some people.
- Randomly-generated filenames like qvbdnifharv.exe and dbwqis.exe to make identification difficult.
- Putting files in the Windows folder rather than a properly labelled branch of the "Program Files" folder
- Not putting full information into the file properties section of its executable.
- Multiple processes that restart each other if one is terminated.
- Not including an uninstaller, but requiring users to go to MyPCTuneUp.
- Starting from the "Shell" location, which is intended for the main interface Windows users interact with.
BestOffers
Released September 2005, BestOffers is an adware client. [http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_136251.htm
BetterInternet
Released mid-2003, BetterInternet is another adware client. [http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453076992 It is also used as an umbrella term for several of these other adware clients.
Blackstonedata Transponder
BTGrab
Ceres
DLMax
LocalNRD
MSView
MultiMPP
MXTarget
MyPCTuneUp
MyPCTuneUp is the uninstaller that DirectRevenue provided for their software.OfferOptimizer
Pynix
SolidPeer
TPS108
Twaintec
VX2 RespondMiter
Zserv
External links
- Direct Revenue official site
- McAfee SiteAdvisor ratings page
- Is This Software On Your Hard Drive? MSNBC, Brad Stone, Dec. 12, 2004
- The Plot To Hijack Your Computer BusinessWeek, July 17, 2006
"DirectRevenue"