[Trust]

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/whenu-spam/

[Vinny O'Hare]

Wow trust
that was some heavy reading, very interesting thanks now I know what cloaking is. I always heard the word but never knew what it was
Thanks
Vinny

[Trust]

One smart guy, was taking a look around his site. Good reading.

[happypoon]

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

I just love Benjamin.



His comments to the FTC make for good reading also.

[Chris - AMWSO]

This guy gets several links added on our site! Benjamin Rules w

Wonder if he'd mind taking Goldmine to the cleaners, now there's a company with more cloaks than batman!

Ms.B Do we hear wedding bells

Cheers

Chris

[jc101]

Rock on!

[Jaloppy]

Read his FTC submittal. It is excellent.

[ecomcity]

WOW...The heat is turning up as verified by total network silence on the "BHO's getting whacked" thread subjects.

"Web site "cloaking" is the practice of providing different web content to users than to search engines. Through cloaking, WhenU elevates the visibility of sites it selects, while pushing critics' sites lower in search engine rankings. This article documents my finding that WhenU has used cloaking on at least eleven web sites, and that WhenU has linked to its cloaked sites with hidden code on www.whenu.com. Upon learning of these behaviors, search engines Google and Yahoo removed from their indexes the WhenU sites involved in the scheme (including www.whenu.com)."

[bedelman]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by IamJaloppy:
Read his FTC submittal. It is excellent. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks IamJaloppy. Always nice to get some positive feedback.

I was thinking back on my FTC comment, and I realize it probably isn't as accessible to most readers as it should be. The key new finding (WhenU violating its own privacy policy) is "buried" in paragraph 12. And no one likes PDFs anyway -- they're so hard to read on most screens.

So I updated the WhenU privacy policy research, this time with formatting suitable for the web rather than suitable for filing as a PDF with the FTC. The result:

WhenU Violates Own Privacy Policy
http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/whenu-privacy/


Ben

[Trust]

Nice work.

[Andy]

Excellent report, Ben!

I knew it was only a matter of time until the business practices of these companies became known for what they really are. They do not provide value to the end user. They do not add anything to the Internet experience.

They take advantage of people and steal commissions from others.

Thanks for spending the time and resources to let everyone know what's really going on at WhenU.

Andy