Microsoft Windows patent will spy for advertisers
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The computer is impersonal again If you thought adverts on the web have become more offensive and more intrusive than ever before, then it might be time to find alternatives to using software from Microsoft.â¦
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A company finds a sneaky new way to silence security researchers: Claim that defeating its products infringes on patents. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.
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Detect and remove all dangerous spyware and adware from your PC with SpyBlocs 2.0. Protect yourself against identity theft. Free download.
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Emerging technology uses a printer's fingerprint to trace and verify documents.
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By Ryan, Jim T  REGION  Exploitive ads proliferate on World Wide Web  Computer experts are advising companies and Web surfers to be wary about what they double-click on, even when visiting trusted sites.
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Spyware, those annoying programs that snoop on a user's actions, remain a Windows-only phenomenon.
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Microsoft is offering protection against patent claims for Office binary formats under its Open Specification Promise.
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A partnership unveiled this week between Microsoft, MediaCart Holdings, and Wakefern Food will deliver personalized ads to grocery shoppers through computerized carts. The initiative is yet another way that Microsoft aims to derive revenue from ads, even as it continues to struggle with Google to take more of the online advertising market.
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New technologies from Microsoft will help advertisers better target ads to content in search, video, on Web pages and public kiosks.
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The software monolith extends an intellectual property plan to all.   Also: U.S. opposes the WTO's online gambling plan & hellip;.  Microsoft will offer a long awaited preview of its search-engine technology & hellip;. and more.
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Alcatel has accused Microsoft of infringing seven of its U.S. patents. The patents describe how to implement fast-forward and rewind functions in digital video streams, among other things.
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Microsoft on Thursday released a free trial copy of antispyware software it purchased last month, marking the company's entry into the fast-growing market for products that block surreptitious snooping programs, and promised monthly releases of tools to stop new malicious software.
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Ads and adware have a new way to get on your computer--through files that appear to be music and video.
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A civil suit filed in Florida by Dell and its Alienware subsidiary is giving insight into the enormous sums of money that can be made by creating Web pages full of advertising links.In October, Dell sued a group of domain registrars, alleging the companies bought more than 1,100 domain names with trademark-infringing characteristics, such as &quot;dellbatterrogram.com&quot; in order to put advertising links on the pages.The practice, known as&#160;typosquatting, is illegal. It&#39;s intended to draw unwitting Web surfers to pages with URLs (uniform resource locators) that are similar to legitimate sites, and then redirect them to other sites. The owners of these Web sites get revenue from advertising referral programs every time a link is clicked.The defendants -- Belgiumdomains, Capitoldomains, Domaindoorman, Netrian Ventures, iHoldings.com, Juan Pablo Vazquez, and 10 unnamed defendants -- deny the claims. Dell contends the businesses, most of which are registered outside the U.S., are shell companies engaged in collusion.Dell sought a court order in November to freeze their assets so the money from their operations wouldn&#39;t disappear. Last month, the court amended the freeze order, and contained in the details of the new order are clues to just how much money the defendants may be raking in.Google, whose AdSense advertising-placement program was used to monetize the domains, was ordered to hold in a special account the first $1 million collected on behalf of the defendants each month. The second $1 million that accrues in the account every month will be given to the defendants. If more than $2 million accrues in one month, the money is split between the defendants and the Google account.Google takes a cut of AdSense revenue, which shows that it in part benefits from this kind of abuse of the Internet. However, Google recently announced it will not allow AdSense campaigns on &quot;kited&quot; domains.Kiting is a technique used by some rogue registrars to avoid having to pay the fee for using a domain. The domain is repeatedly registered and unregistered within a five-day Add-Grace Period. The grace period, which applies to a handful of TLDs (Top Level Domains) was intended to let people get a refund of their domain registration fee if they made a spelling mistake.Kiting often goes hand in hand with another abusive practice, &quot;domain tasting.&quot; A domain name is registered and monitored during the grace period to see if it gets sufficient traffic to pay for its registration fee. The domain owners then get refunds on the sites with low traffic. However, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers&#160;(ICANN) is considering keeping a $0.20 fee&#160;it normally refunds as part of the registration process in order to stop tasting.Dell has accused the typosquatter defendants in its lawsuit of both practices and is claiming their profits as well as $100,000 per infringing domain used.Google&#39;s antikiting policy doesn&#39;t apply to domain tasting, meaning the company will still potentially benefit from Web sites intended merely for advertising. A Google spokesman said Tuesday, however, that Web sites are supposed to have legitimate content in order to be accepted into AdSense.Other information in the court documents shed light on the economics of monetizing domain names. Dell contends the defendants control some 1 million domain names, and believes they also have used at least 64 million other unique domain names.When the court froze the defendants&#39; assets in November, it also froze their ability to stop renewing domain names that weren&#39;t producing enough revenue to justify the registration fees. Since the defendants controlled so many domain names, the automatic renewal of those names -- likely around 3,000 domains a day -- cost them $20,000 per day.However, the defendants successfully petitioned the court to cancel domains that were generating less than $8 a year in revenue.&quot;These [figures] tell us that there&#39;s lots of money in tasting, and it&#39;s a game of huge volume,&quot; wrote John Levine, a consultant and author of &quot;The Internet for Dummies&quot; on his blog.The Dell case continues in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.&#160;
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Ask hopes a tool which erases search history will prove a winner with consumers concerned about privacy.
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A security research company is offering $20,000 for information on undisclosed security flaws in Microsoft&#39;s Windows OS.Digital Armaments, which doesn&#39;t list a phone number or a headquarters address on its Web site, is offering the money as part of the &quot;Hacker&#39;s Challenge&quot; through midnight EST, Feb. 29. The company is also soliciting for flaws in what they term &quot;Windows Diffuse Applications.&quot;Submitters need to illustrate a working exploit and document it, according to the company&#39;s Web site, which is filled with misspelled words.There&#39;s nothing illegal about paying security researchers for flaws, but it does tend to annoy software companies whose products are affected.Wabisabilabi, based in Switzerland,&#160;took the idea of compensating researchers a step further&#160;last year by opening a site for them to sell vulnerabilities in auctions. In response to criticism, company officials countered that researchers could sell zero-day vulnerabilities on the black market.Microsoft, whose security vulnerabilities are generally high profile, advocates that researchers discretely alert it to software problems so users aren&#39;t put at risk. Companies generally refuse to pay for software vulnerabilities.Digital Armaments says on its Web site its research team was founded in 2003, and offices were opened in the U.S. later that year.In addition to paying money for vulnerabilities, Digital Armaments will also apparently pay in stock or credits that can be exchanged for stock under its Digital Armaments Contribution Program.Efforts to reach Digital Armaments on Wednesday morning by e-mail were unsuccessful.
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LicenseWise and Windows Vista Hardware Assessment help users navigate Microsoft offerings.