GreenguyandJim Fighting Zango

[MrYum]

Originally Posted by Jim

You guys would not believe some of the crap I have learned over the past couple of days. A person that has been fighting zango for almost 3 years contacted me and he has taught me a lot about zango. These guys are some of the most devious we have ever been up against. The crap they are doing with cookies, iframes and even javascript is crazy. We have barely touched the surface with the popups. But, some of the stuff they are doing is illegal. And, they should be going to court in a few days. The illegal stuff may be their downfall... Cross your fingers.

Looks like they got a bit of a spanking...

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...sage_to_i.html

Small potatoes for the fuckers, but at least it's a start

[Jim]

Shit, I just posted a link to cnet saying the same thing. The important part is they have to clearly let the surfer know they are installing pop ups and provide an easy removal tool.

[mOrrI]

Great stuff...
thanks for sharing this with us...

[mist]

Thanks for the htaccess file.

[eman]

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/21...-targets-zango

Zango spokesperson Steve Stratz called the Zango Warning site "blatant lies and scare tactics", and provided vnunet.com with a copy of an ad that the company will soon be running.

The ad, which is set to appear every time a user is re-directed to the Zango Warning site, tells the user "The Web page in question is designed to 'scare the surfer', as its 'creator' has confessed.

The makers Greenguy and Jim did not return a request for comment.

[T Pat]

Originally Posted by eman

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/21...-targets-zango

good find eman
Makes me proud to be a member of GGandJ

[eman]

These zango people are slippery bastards (:

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by eman

...The makers Greenguy and Jim did not return a request for comment.

DAMN SPAN FOLDERS! Not to worry, I know Jim will have a comment for them tomorrow

Originally Posted by eman

...Zango spokesperson Steve Stratz called the Zango Warning site "blatant lies and scare tactics", and provided vnunet.com with a copy of an ad that the company will soon be running.

The ad, which is set to appear every time a user is re-directed to the Zango Warning site, tells the user "The Web page in question is designed to 'scare the surfer', as its 'creator' has confessed...

I've already come up with a possible solution - assuming they are detecting it based on the domain adwaresucks.com (how else would they be detecting it?) all you really have to do is put it on a different domain.

Each of us is going to have to host it on our own domains. And yes, they'll eventually get a list of domains that are doing it together & pop-up the anti-ad every time a user goes to those domains, but they won't get every domain if everyone uses a different one

Yes, this will take time on our parts & yes, it does seem like work you've already done, but think of the workload they'll have surfing around to all our sites seeing if the ad pops up

[virgohippy]

How about a speedy redirect with htaccess that's set to point to one of many recently designated "info" pages?

Kind of a shame this is turning into a pissing match. As they adapt, we're forced to do so. Seems to me fighting with these people with code, and web tricks seems like a battle of wasted efforts. We need to fight them on a level on which they can't easily compete.

Find something in their documentation and harass them legally through the judicial system... maybe even a class action lawsuit for stolen revenues?

[Jim]

Holy Shit..I was never asked for a comment about what any zango spokesman said. Maybe Sparky can come up with some way to stop their warning from blocking our warning I do have to wonder, what lies did I say in the warning? I quoted Zone Alarm and I said that what zango was doing was not illegal since the user agreed to it in their terms and conditions. Maybe that was the lie

[Jim]

Oh yeah...I have a funny story, speaking of zango. Saturday, my daughter brought over her laptop because she has been running without any virus protection. So, I go and search for Pccillan..I forgot the domain. I find it and go to the site. I am about to click on buy and a window pops up with another buy in it. So, I start to move my mouse to it to click and then look at the bottom of the browser. "Browser brought to you by Zango"

[Senator_x]

I would like to collect stats on my server to see how many surfers are infected with ZANGO. There must be an easy way.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Senator_x

I would like to collect stats on my server to see how many surfers are infected with ZANGO. There must be an easy way.

You could use the htaccess code that we have, redirect it to a copy of your main page on your server & see how many people have it by watching the stats for the mirror page.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Jim

Holy Shit..I was never asked for a comment about what any zango spokesman said....

Sparky looked thru the log files last night & no email from vnunet.com came thru the servers in the last 2 weeks.

I think you need to write them a strongly worded letter!

[Senator_x]

Originally Posted by Greenie

You could use the htaccess code that we have, redirect it to a copy of your main page on your server & see how many people have it by watching the stats for the mirror page.

That was easy.

Thank you

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by eman

...Zango spokesperson Steve Stratz called the Zango Warning site "blatant lies and scare tactics", and provided vnunet.com with a copy of an ad that the company will soon be running.

The ad, which is set to appear every time a user is re-directed to the Zango Warning site, tells the user "The Web page in question is designed to 'scare the surfer', as its 'creator' has confessed...

OH! I thought of another possible solution for this - on the adwaresucks.com page, where they will be popping up the anti-ad, we can add some text along the lines of: "The pop-up you just saw is proof that Zango is tracking where you are surfing - how else would they know that you were on the our website? Please read......"

[Jim]

I really hope that when we see what they have done, Sparky will come up with an answer for us. Like I just told Greenie, they could have something as easy as if the word zango is on a page, they popup the window calling me a lier using scare tactics. Since they have included themselves on their exclusion list, they really don't want to use their browser when zango is mentioned anyway. I think we have to fight this with software and not just moving it. But, if we could pop somethig on top of their popup like Greenie mentioned that might work as well.

[Jim]

Oh yeah, anyone redirecting to the adwaresucks page...if you would like to know how many surfers you have sent, just ask me and I will let you know.

[tickler]

Hey Jim, you could always put an looping auto-focus on your page to bring it to the top. Even if they do the same it will drive the surfers nuts with the page flipping.

Originally Posted by virgohippy

Find something in their documentation and harass them legally through the judicial system... maybe even a class action lawsuit for stolen revenues?

Well here the details direct from MetricsDirect(Zango) page on how they deliver ads.
http://www.metricsdirect.com/whatwed...ngyourads.aspx
"a woman types in “women’s discount shoes” on Google. Google delivers a page with its usual list of search results and sponsored listings. Zango delivers a new browser window above this listing, displaying the advertiser’s landing web page."

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Jim

Oh yeah, anyone redirecting to the adwaresucks page...if you would like to know how many surfers you have sent, just ask me and I will let you know.

I forgot that since we are sending traffic using an htaccess file, I am only able to see the sites that send traffic to you. The numbers are crazy. So far for the month of November, that page has gotten 153434 visits.

[[BV]]

I have run across a couple neat tools to combat Zango on other boards.

Is it ok to link to threads on other boards?

One is a one click zango removal tool and the other is some code that can be placed on the page to prevent Zango from popping an add.

[Greenguy]

BV - post away!

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I've already come up with a possible solution - assuming they are detecting it based on the domain adwaresucks.com (how else would they be detecting it?) all you really have to do is put it on a different domain.

Each of us is going to have to host it on our own domains. And yes, they'll eventually get a list of domains that are doing it together & pop-up the anti-ad every time a user goes to those domains, but they won't get every domain if everyone uses a different one

Yes, this will take time on our parts & yes, it does seem like work you've already done, but think of the workload they'll have surfing around to all our sites seeing if the ad pops up

you have a PM with some code to look at! Figured I would let you take a look before I posted it.

[Greenguy]

Thanks tickler

[monro]

Originally Posted by Jim

Oh yeah...I have a funny story, speaking of zango. Saturday, my daughter brought over her laptop because she has been running without any virus protection. So, I go and search for Pccillan..I forgot the domain. I find it and go to the site. I am about to click on buy and a window pops up with another buy in it. So, I start to move my mouse to it to click and then look at the bottom of the browser. "Browser brought to you by Zango"

How does Google and other search engines react to this? As you describe it above it is pure theft! And misleading the search results provided.
-----------
Last 24 hours the amount of Zango infected users redirected by my .htaccess have gone down 50%. Has Zango found a way around the script already you think?
It is "ZangoToolbar" in: RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ZangoToolbar [NC] i am worried about.
If they change "ZangoToolbar" is it free way for the thieves again?