It's a long story and I don't want to break any copyrights by reposting an article but just read this and I think you will understand why I'm so distubed.

http://gethighforums.com/Forum10/HTML/001386.html

So that is what was doing that on my schools computers. I noticed it about a month ago but so much crap was installed on it from other students. Its really annoying and pissed me off.

microsoft is trying to do the exact same thing with Windows XP

Originally posted by RunOfTheMill
microsoft is trying to do the exact same thing with Windows XP

Microsoft backed down and wont be doing smart tags in XP after much critisism.

Everyone do themselves a favor and download this software and install it and wake up to the really big suprise afterwords. My web hosting site now has links to DialtoneInternet on it. OH MY GO* I AM SO FREAKIN PISSED.

I am going to go through all kinds of sites and record which companies are supporting these scumbags, write them letting them know of my disgust and boycott them. I'll give the list here.

I'm also in the process of writing eZula to have my domains blocked from their "service". If anyone has any other ideas outside of what has already been suggested I would appreciate hearing them. Mainly what else can be done besides just "asking" to be blocked. Because in my opinion, if I create and operate a web site, I have the rights to that site, not some half baked company. And I shouldn't have to tell them to block my sites.

Just my thoughts and I will discuss my frustration with eZula...

Heres a few suggestions,

1. Write eZula and let them know that their tactics are....

2. Write Kaza and let them know the same.

3. Write reviews on download sites like download.com so they know this software does this.

4. Write any and all news organazations to let them know about this scumware.

5. Write the FTC and let them know of this. This is illegal. The software is taking copyrighted software and altering it before presenting it to the user.

If anyone knows of any other goverment agencies to write please post them here.

So far I have found these companies advertising off words on YOUR website

http://www.consumerinfo.com
http://www.dialtoneinternet.com
http://www.charge.com
http://www.virtualbank.com

Originally posted by JeremyL
So far I have found these companies advertising off words on YOUR website


Who is this referring to? I just downloaded and installed KaZaa to see if there were any links added from that company and so far I haven't found any. I wonder if I missed a step but I know it installed and even have KaZaa running right now.

Im not sure what version you installed, but the one I got from download.com had it. And now there are 4 links on the main page of WHT that all point to Dialtone Internet.

They are easily identifiable by their thick yellow underline.

I did notice these links, but didn't realize KaZaa did it.

What they do is select certain keywords, and when you click/hover that word, it gives you an option to go to the advertised website.

I found what program it was and un-installed it though. So it isn't IN KaZaa, just installs with it.

I sent the following e-mail message to eZula regarding having my sites blocked. I am also going to look into contacting the Better Business Bureau regarding this issue...


I am very disturbed by what I have read on several web sites including the San Francisco Chronicle about your advertising techniques. I own and operate three web sites and DO NOT want you to have any access to the words or links on those sites. I am mainly sending this message to inform you that you are to block the following three domains from your so-called service.

They are:
http://www.markblair.net/
http://www.nhlredwings.net/
http://www.specializedpc.net/

Further, I want to express that what I post on my web sites is for my own private gain and is for me and my company to make money from. That is why I put in the time and effort to create these sites. You have nothing to do with them and thus have no right to place "tags" on them for others to be able to purchase products and/or services from competitors. I will be closely monitoring your technology from now on and I trust that I will not find any highlighted text on my sites that is caused by TopText, eZula, or your technology in general.

Also, I require a response to this message letting me know that the appropriate action has been taken to block my sites. If I find out otherwise, I will be in contact with the Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau located in Oakland, California.

Sincerely,
Mark Blair


...I will post any responses I receive here and hope this action is followed by thousands more by other web site owners.

Can you imagine what comes in the future.
What if winamp starts doing the samething.
Major companies can be doing this with their software.
Its only the beggining.

Media doesn't care, because its bringing them millions.

The problem here, is that it will not stop with this company. I think more and more will do this, if it proves to be effective. These companies also have the agreement on the software which allows them to do this, thats what I think, im not sure. Not only are they allowing illegal files transferd, but they screwing people over too.

It's not only Kazaa! My fiancé installed Address.com's free Internet software and it did the same thing to her browser.

Has anyone tried Morpheus? Morpheus (www.musiccity.com) is the same software as Kazaa distributed by another company. Anyone know if it does the same thing to your browser or not?

I have both Kazaa and Morpheus installed on my desktop machine and I have not noticed these links on any website. I run Windows2000, Internet Explorer 5.0 and Kazaa 1.3.1.

Maybe everyone should answer these questions..
1 - Are you infected by this "Virus"?
2 - What operating system are you running?
3 - What version of Internet Explorer are you running?
4 - What version of Kazaa are you running?

What's up everyone, :angry:

I say all the hosting companies should protect their customers. You should all send in a list of all your customers to get their sites block. :angry:

Peace
Wise1

This is one of the most rank and vile attempts at brainwashing I have ever seen. Nobody with four working brain cells would install such a utility so they need to hide it inside something totally unrelated. It will spread far and wide because many PC's have kids using them and many adults like sharing media files too.

Here is my defence.

The keywords are only made active if they are unlinked. If you use CSS in your web design (foolish not to) then you can create a style for each heading, each body font or any other style of font you might use as text and have keywords in.

eg.

For my keywords inside the body text include class=same inside a href tag enclosing the keywords.
A.same { put same style descriptions as for BODY, P etc.; }
A.same:hover { put same style descriptions as for BODY, P etc.; }


For my keywords inside the H1 text include class=h1same inside a href tag enclosing the keywords.
A.h1same { put same style descriptions as for H1; }
A.hsame:hover { put same style descriptions as for H1; }


This way you can embed links which will look the same and can be directed to pages on your web site without having these sods achieve anything by their scum tactics. Need to keep a watch on your pages to keep up to date with new bought phrases.

Reason

I get the feeling this is going to show up more and more. *sigh* :rolleyes:

I also suggest that you submit an invoice to claim payment for the time it takes to defend your web content and design style from being tampered with.

It could be very dangerous creating links from a web site without consent. For example, how do we know the links are appropriate?

This company needs to be dealt with promptly.

Reason

This won't work,

The links are not created by HTML at all. If you see one of these links on the web page and then look at the HTML, you will see that there is no change to the HTML at all. It works by affecting the IE browser itself. :(

Originally posted by reason
This is one of the most rank and vile attempts at brainwashing I have ever seen. Nobody with four working brain cells would install such a utility so they need to hide it inside something totally unrelated. It will spread far and wide because many PC's have kids using them and many adults like sharing media files too.

Here is my defence.

The keywords are only made active if they are unlinked. If you use CSS in your web design (foolish not to) then you can create a style for each heading, each body font or any other style of font you might use as text and have keywords in.

eg.

For my keywords inside the body text include class=same inside a href tag enclosing the keywords.
A.same { put same style descriptions as for BODY, P etc.; }
A.same:hover { put same style descriptions as for BODY, P etc.; }


For my keywords inside the H1 text include class=h1same inside a href tag enclosing the keywords.
A.h1same { put same style descriptions as for H1; }
A.hsame:hover { put same style descriptions as for H1; }


This way you can embed links which will look the same and can be directed to pages on your web site without having these sods achieve anything by their scum tactics. Need to keep a watch on your pages to keep up to date with new bought phrases.

Reason

Can someone please list some consumer organazations that file lawsuits on behalf of consumers and such? I am sure a few of them would love to take this on, I just can't remember any of their names.

THis probably won't be the last company, thats why we have to contact the authoriies and get it deamed illegal.

Given that legal mumbo jumbo will take months or even years to have any affect at all...

Can I ask... has anyone found any way in which to identify the "virus" (I can't think of a better word) from accessible browser info?

If nothing else I'd like to block people who use the software from my own and users sites... or at bare minimum ensure that they are 100% aware that links in yellow, or whatever, are NOT an integral part of the site.

Sounds drastic perhaps but I can imagine the legal implications that the software will create... Especially on sites where their links to external sites are taken as solid advice and recommendation.

.. That and the fact that the result will be clients phoning up to ask why their site is promoting a credit card scam. <? $deity ?> help us.

I couldn't find anything on their site where they let you provide a domain for blocking. Am I missing something or did someone just decide that if they contact them they will do this for you?

It is just wrong. Does the software tell you that it is installing on your computer? Does it tell you what it is? Really, I do see it as a virus if not. Isn't it? Isn't that what viruses do?

Looks like eZula-powered Dialtone Internet links are showing up on all sites related to web hosting. Even on their customers' sites!!! Check out the attached screen capture from the JaguarPC (http://www.jaguarpc.com) site.

I sent ezula a request to remove their links from my sites, I am curious to see if they'll comply.

Originally posted by Chicken
It is just wrong. Does the software tell you that it is installing on your computer? Does it tell you what it is? Really, I do see it as a virus if not. Isn't it? Isn't that what viruses do?

It installs as a normal program into your program files along with Kazaa. It is mentioned in the install screens but most people just fly through those and never notice it I'm sure.

It can be removed, but the average surfer wouldn't know what to look for to remove it.

Time for someone to develop a 'good worm' that removes eZula :cartman:

Originally posted by Kiwi
Time for someone to develop a 'good worm' that removes eZula :cartman:

ROFL, that would be great. Someone to develop a worm kind of like sircam but that does nothing but uninstall this program from their program files. To make it more effective it would work better if it ran without having to open up the actual attachment and just ran when Outlook opened up the email itself ;)

I plan on keeping it installed, and everytime I run across a site that has been defaced by this program, taking a screenshot of it and emailing it to that sites webmaster telling them about it and pointing them to all the info out there about these scumbags.

The more people we get involved the better.

Originally posted by JeremyL


ROFL, that would be great. Someone to develop a worm kind of like sircam but that does nothing but uninstall this program from their program files. To make it more effective it would work better if it ran without having to open up the actual attachment and just ran when Outlook opened up the email itself ;)

I plan on keeping it installed, and everytime I run across a site that has been defaced by this program, taking a screenshot of it and emailing it to that sites webmaster telling them about it and pointing them to all the info out there about these scumbags.

The more people we get involved the better.

Yeah, i just mailed you to take some screenshots of our site.
We all should do this to be prepaired if it comes down to a lawsuit or whatever. :mad:

microsol,

unfortunatly they did you even worse. Most of the links they have added to websites are on top of just normal text. On yours they made a link in your site map that would normally go to your dedicated servers point to dialtone internet also. The screen shots are below.

screenshot 2

This is the disturbing one. If their link was just added to normal text though, they would be taken straight to dialtone internet in the same screen, not a popup. But since they replaced your link with their link, they offer both. And again if dialton is elected, they would be opened up in the main screen and not a pop up.

Next time ask me for my email before doing these kind of posts ;)


But thx anyway. I am working on a legal letter right now :smash:

Has anyone tried Morpheus? Morpheus (www.musiccity.com) is the same software as Kazaa distributed by another company. Anyone know if it does the same thing to your browser or not?
No, Morpheus does not do this.

Man, this really sucks.

My nice little letter:
Your software is nothing short of brazen defacement of private property. In regards to this, you are under direct orders to confirm to me that no site I manage will be defaced by your software.

You will quickly find that you have made an enemy of the entire webhosting world, as evidenced by the posts of many, many webmasters and site owners across the Internet. You should be prepared for a class action suit against your company, of which I will proudly be a part of.

These sites are currently under my control, and MUST not be altered:
<snip my whole resold domain list>

Proceeds from any clicks processed by your software from any of these sites MUST be accounted for and a summary provided to myself for distribution to my clients.

http://webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=134690
http://webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=134729
http://webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=134732

These three screen shots really show you how wrong this whole thing is. I hadn't seen it before. I mean COME ON! It has altered the navigation menu on the site (for web hosting) with a direct link to Dialtone! WTF???

I knew this sucked when I saw NBCi trying it, but I guess I didn't realize how outrageously horrible it really could be. I just thought it was unfair and a bad idea at the time.

Dialtone would be OUTRAGED if they had links to competitors appearing due to this software. I'm not sure you can blame them for using the service, however I feel it is irresponsible to support something like this. I guess responsibility gets clouded with advertising, click throughs and $$$ however.

Thank you for posting those screen shots everyone.

Nobody can probably do much against this ...if the end-user that downloads the software agrees to the contract that probably (i'm guessing) states that he allows the program to modify the websites with advertising links.

My personal opinion is that eZula won't survive for long.

:smash:

I emailed Dialtones meadia relations person to let them know how disgusted I was that they would support this type of thing and pointed them to this thread (tracoobian@thorpco.com). I am now looking into starting up a site that explains the whole ordeal and list all the companies I can find that support them and call for a boycot of all of them until they stop paying to deface our sites.

Originally posted by Chicken
...
Dialtone would be OUTRAGED if they had links to competitors appearing due to this software. I'm not sure you can blame them for using the service, however I feel it is irresponsible to support something like this. I guess responsibility gets clouded with advertising, click throughs and $$$ however.

Ok, let's say DI sees the light and gives up the "web hosting" keywords. Who do you think will snap it up? Probably some sleazy outfit like ***** or Interland or even Shang and then what? The root of the problem is not the advertizer, it's the way technology has been implemented with total disregard to any ethical considerations. This thing needs to be shut down by whatever (legal) way possible, ie class-action suit, sponsor boycot, burying them in requests for removing domains from their system, etc.

At least you can warn anyone that they have it and provide a link to how to get rid of it:
http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezula.asp

Hmm, I just ran the Kazaa setup program and it asks you if you would like to install that plugin. I personally always choose not to install programs/plugins that I have no idea what they are, maybe you people should be a little more careful in the future?

So if you look at it this way, they gave you a choice and you chose to install it. However, I agree they gave very poor information about what it is and what it does.

Originally posted by Kiwi
Nobody can probably do much against this ...if the end-user that downloads the software agrees to the contract that probably (i'm guessing) states that he allows the program to modify the websites with advertising links.Yep, that's why I wouldn't expect much out of any attempts to stop this through the legal system. There's nothing in any law that gives a site operator control over how a site is displayed on a user's computer. If I want to, I can use my own stylesheet to override the site's creator's styles, for example. Claims such as that this defaces private property or illegally interferes with copyright are not legally valid; the site owner doesn't own the depiction of a site on the user's machine, and no "defacement" takes place on the site owner's files.

Don't take this to mean that I support the distribution of this kind of software; I don't. Maybe the force of public outcry can stop it, but unlike Microsoft's "smart tags" which would have been an integral part of the browser this is something a user can choose whether or not to use. I guess what I'd expect to be the most likely result of a storm of protest would be a change in how it's distributed, making it more clear that you can "opt out" during the installation process.

On the other hand, if someone does go ahead and try to take legal action they'll have my best wishes for success.

Originally posted by Mr. Amazon
Hmm, I just ran the Kazaa setup program and it asks you if you would like to install that plugin. I personally always choose not to install programs/plugins that I have no idea what they are, maybe you people should be a little more careful in the future?

So if you look at it this way, they gave you a choice and you chose to install it. However, I agree they gave very poor information about what it is and what it does.

I am like you ank always look at what I am installing but unfortunatly the average web surfer usually doesn't. They usually just hit next right past it thinking it's just part of the install process. :(

Originally posted by Dan_K
At least you can warn anyone that they have it and provide a link to how to get rid of it:
http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezula.asp

I tried this and it doesnt work. I have the program installed and it still defaces my page with that javascript installed and their script doesnt detect I am running it on my machine when I am :(

Originally posted by JeremyL


I am like you ank always look at what I am installing but unfortunatly the average web surfer usually doesn't. They usually just hit next right past it thinking it's just part of the install process. :(

I know that. But they can't come here and whine about it when it's their own misstake. Everybody knows that you shouldn't just download and install everything you find on the net. They're full of viruses, trojans and god knows what else. It's just like signing a contract without reading it first and then.. well.. you get the point.

It looks like their license agreement is not valid :stickout

Read this:

PARTNER PROGRAMS

We have partnered with selected software companies to offer you useful additional software. In the next screen you can opt out of installing any of these. By installing each program you accept the terms of use and the privacy policy for that program. You can find the terms for each program below.

* TOPTEXT - a browser plug-in which gives Internet Explorer relevant quick links.

Terms Of Use : http://www.ezula.com/privacy/terms_of_use.asp
Privacy Policy : http://www.ezula.com/privacy/privacy_policy.asp

* ONFLOW - a browser plug-in for dazzling, animated messages.

Terms Of Use : http://www.onflow.com/support/terms.php
Privacy Policy : http://www.onflow.com/privacy.php

* WEBHANCER - measures and reports speed of web sites for optimizations.

Terms Of Use : http://www.webhancer.com/support/index.asp?s=32&p=license (also below)
Privacy Policy : http://www.webhancer.com/privacy/

* NEW.NET - a browser plug-in to access new cool domains, like .mp3, .sport etc.

Terms Of Use : http://www.new.net/policies_terms.tp
Privacy Policy : http://www.new.net/policies_privacy.tp


DISCLAIMER: These programs are provided by third party companies. Although KaZaA has evaluated and tested these programs, KaZaA takes no responsibility for these programs whatsoever.

----------------------------------------

The text below is the terms of service from Webhancer. By installing Webhancer Customer Companion, you accept the below terms of service. These terms of service are not from KaZaA nor related to the KaZaA software.

Terms and Conditions of Installing the webHancer Customer Companion (the "Software").

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

THIS SOFTWARE RELAYS YOUR WEB SURFING PERFORMANCE METRICS TO WEBHANCER CORP. TO GENERATE PERFORMANCE REPORTS FOR THIRD PARTIES. AS SUCH, YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION WILL BE USED PERIODICALLY TO SEND AND RECEIVE DATA. YOU REMAIN ANONYMOUS - NO PERSONAL OR IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION IS COLLECTED - ONLY QUANTITATIVE PERFORMANCE DATA.

WE RESPECT OUR CUSTOMERS PRIVACY. TO VIEW WEBHANCER'S PRIVACY POLICY, GO TO: http://www.webhancer.com/products/privacy.

THIS SOFTWARE SUPPORTS WINDOWS 98/2000/ME and WINDOWS NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 and higher (EXCLUDING WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVER AND WINDOWS 2000 WITH TERMINAL SERVICES ENABLED).

THIS IS A LICENSE, NOT A SALE. THIS END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT ("AGREEMENT") IS A LEGAL CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND WEBHANCER CORP. ("WEBHANCER") FOR THE CUSTOMER COMPANION SOFTWARE (THE 'SOFTWARE'). THIS SOFTWARE WILL MAKE USE OF YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY AND ALL NETWORK USAGE COSTS OR ANY OTHER COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR USE OF THE SOFTWARE. BY DOWNLOADING, INSTALLING OR USING THE SOFTWARE YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, UNINSTALL, AND DO NOT USE THE SOFTWARE.

WEBHANCER grants to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable and restricted license to use the Software on a single computer for your internal use, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement. You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software, excluding copies for commercial distribution, as long as each copy that you distribute is distributed subject to this Agreement, and you reproduce in full all copyright and other proprietary notices pertaining to the Software that appear in the Software.

This Agreement shall remain in effect for as long as you are in compliance with its terms and conditions. This Agreement shall immediately terminate if you fail to comply with any of its provisions. The limitations of liabilities and warranties will survive any termination of this Agreement and will remain in full force and effect even after termination. Should WEBHANCER release any updates, upgrades or new versions of the Software or supplemental code or supporting materials for the Software ("Additional Software Releases"), all such Additional Software Releases shall be considered part of the Software and subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and any additional terms and conditions that accompany the Additional Software Releases. In consideration of the foregoing license from WEBHANCER to you, you grant to WEBHANCER the perpetual, unrestricted right to record and use your web surfing performance metrics, in whole or in part, in any form or format.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS". YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ADEQUATE PROTECTION AND BACKUP OF THE DATA AND EQUIPMENT USED IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE. WEBHANCER MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WRITTEN OR ORAL, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABLE QUALITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR THOSE ARISING BY LAW, STATUTE, USAGE OF TRADE, COURSE OF DEALING OR OTHERWISE. WEBHANCER DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE. YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE.

NEITHER WE NOR OUR DEALERS OR SUPPLIERS SHALL HAVE ANY LIABILITY TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF REVENUE OR PROFIT, LOST OR DAMAGED DATA OR OTHER COMMERCIAL OR ECONOMIC LOSS, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, OR THEY ARE FORESEEABLE. WE ARE ALSO NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CLAIMS BY A THIRD PARTY. OUR MAXIMUM AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU AND THAT OF OUR DEALERS AND SUPPLIERS SHALL NOT EXCEED FORTY DOLLARS CANADIAN ($40.00 CDN). THE LIMITATIONS IN THIS SECTION SHALL APPLY WHETHER OR NOT THE ALLEGED BREACH OR DEFAULT IS A BREACH OF A FUNDAMENTAL CONDITION OR TERM OR A FUNDAMENTAL BREACH. The limited warranty, exclusive remedies and limited liability set out herein are fundamental elements of the basis of the bargain between you and WEBHANCER. You acknowledge and agree that WEBHANCER would not be able to provide the Software free of charge without such limitations. In jurisdictions which do not allow the exclusion or limitation of consequential, incidental or special damages, WEBHANCER's liability for such damages shall be limited to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

The Software, including all copies, and all copyrights and all other rights, title and interest subsisting in or related to the Software, and all data collected there from, shall at all times remain the property of WEBHANCER or its licensors. You must reproduce any copyright or other proprietary notices on the Software in their entirety in all copies of the Software. WEBHANCER and its licensors reserve all rights not expressly granted to you. You shall not translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software or any part of the Software, except to the extent this restriction is not permitted by the laws of your jurisdiction; or modify or adapt or create derivative works based on the Software or any part of the Software or merge the Software or any part of the Software with any other software program.

Notice to U.S. Government end users. If this product is acquired under the terms of a: GSA contract-Use, reproduction or disclosure is subject to the restrictions set forth in the applicable ADP Schedule contract; U.S. DoD contract- Use, duplication or disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph (c) (1) (ii) of 252.227-7013; Civilian agency contract- Use, reproduction, or disclosure is subject to 52.227-19 (a) through (d) and restrictions set forth in the accompanying end user agreement. Unpublished-rights reserved under the copyright laws of the United States. WebHancer Corp. 2255 Carling Avenue, 3rd Floor Ottawa, Ontario Canada K2B 7E9.

This Agreement is the entire agreement between WEBHANCER and you and supercedes all other agreements, discussions and negotiations, whether oral or written. This Agreement cannot be modified or amended except by a written agreement signed by an authorized officer of WEBHANCER. This shall be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, Canada, excluding conflicts of law and choice of law principles and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, and any legislation implementing such Convention. You consent and attorn to the exclusive jurisdiction of Ontario courts and waive trial by jury, except to the extent a waiver of a jury trial is not permitted by applicable law. If any provision of this Agreement is found to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed severed and the remainder of the Agreement shall continue in full force and effect. You agree to comply with all applicable laws including export restrictions as they relate to this Agreement and your use of the Software. The parties have requested that this Agreement and all documents contemplated hereby be drawn up in English. Les parties aux présentes ont exigé que cette entente et tous autres documents envisagés par les présentes soient rédigés en anglais.


When clicking Next you are asked to choose the directory where you wish to install KaZaa - and not the option to opt-out. ;)

:flamethr: :uzi: :smash: :kaioken: :dgrin:

Ok, the no opt out issue. Also, I'm not entirely certain this description of the program is entirely accurate (as posted above):

TOPTEXT - a browser plug-in which gives Internet Explorer relevant quick links.

Does it give revevant quick links or would you say a more accurate description would be, "... gives links to our advertisers" ??? I understand the issue of people being responsible for what they do however there also is something to be said for being honest about what the program does, how to disable/remove it if you find you don't like 'relevant quick links', etc. I also don't think the average user would understand that these plugins are not needed for the main program to function. I'm not certain, but I think it is just one of those disgusting things that will be hard to stop.

Like someone said, the answer isn't to boycott DI. There will be another host. There will be another program. Maybe this is an IE issue? Netscape doesn't have this? It should be blocked if possible.

The thought of having my dedicated server left navigational link (on my site), offering users a choice between 'the original link' and Dialtone internet Dedicated Server Services would make my blood boil, as I'm sure it does for you already. It is just INSANE. So wrong, so very, very wrong. Makes NetSol holding onto expired domain names a petty issue.

Originally posted by JeremyL
I am now looking into starting up a site that explains the whole ordeal and list all the companies I can find that support them and call for a boycot of all of them until they stop paying to deface our sites.

Already on it. Just waiting for the DNS for BoycottKazaa.org to propogate.

While I don't have a solution for this whole mess, I do have a bit of information to offer...

Have some fun at Kazaa's website. You can download all the files you want, without installing that piece of crap we have all come to know and loathe. :angry: Here's how:

First, disable cookies in your browser. Completely.

Now head on over to Kazaa's site. With cookies disabled, you should be able to download all the files you want. Kazaa has a 15 use "limit" through their web site, but with no way to count how many downloads you have made (because you disabled cookies) you can download all you want... :D

Now, don't everyone rush over there all at once and eat up all their bandwidth!!! ;)

Also, for more info on spyware/adware: The Lavasoft Ad-Aware program is great, but I have learned to now regularly check any "free" software through this site *before* I download/install:

Spychecker - database of spyware/adware.
http://www.spychecker.com

Steve Gibson at GRC also has "OptOut" which you can see here:
http://grc.com/optout.htm

This whole thing stinks :eek: like nothing I have ever seen before. I hope that the entire webmaster community comes together to help stop this as soon as possible.

BTW, has anyone checked to see what it does in Google, or any other search engine? :confused: Does this affect search engine output?

Originally posted by Dustbunny
BTW, has anyone checked to see what it does in Google, or any other search engine? :confused: Does this affect search engine output? Dare I say it but I think I like your style :D

Actually, I would imagine that if this toptext thing hasn't differentiated between sites and is affecting people like say:
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Dell, etc... then perhaps we should be nice and helpful and let those companies know...

After all they have a lot of lawyers lying around in the dungeons waiting for a chance to make someones life a misery.... (sorry had fun with them recently)... why not put them to some good use for a change :)

Websnail (who clearly has excellent taste in friends! ;) ) said:

Actually, I would imagine that if this toptext thing hasn't differentiated between sites and is affecting people like say:
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Dell, etc... then perhaps we should be nice and helpful and let those companies know...

After all they have a lot of lawyers lying around in the dungeons waiting for a chance to make someones life a misery.... (sorry had fun with them recently)... why not put them to some good use for a change
I like this idea... I don't know about anyone else, but I think that perhaps we should expand our efforts -- find out if this is affecting big corporate entities like Microsoft and Yahoo (geez, just thinking about the legal firepower between the two of those makes me kinda dizzy...) because you can be sure that if it is impacting them in a negative fashion, they won't stand still for very long. Can someone who has installed the Kazaa desktop version visit some big corporate sites, and see what happens? Find out what links pop up on Compaq or Toshiba's sites. What turns up yellow on MSNBC, or USAToday.Com?

And while I'm not trying to put forth the idea that we should fire off a few emails, and then just roll over and let someone else fight the good fight, I do think that if you can get The Big Guns involved, it would probably speed things up considerably.

However... (and I hate to even have to bring this up...) what if Microsoft and Yahoo and Dell and the other biggies have *bought* keywords? Is there any way to determine who has bought what/which keywords? :confused: What if they (The Big Guns) aren't a part of the solution, but part of the problem? Does that make it harder to shut this garbage down?

Or does it just make us more determined? ;)

Originally posted by Dustbunny
Websnail (who clearly has excellent taste in friends! ;) ) LOL :D :D
However... (and I hate to even have to bring this up...) what if Microsoft and Yahoo and Dell and the other biggies have *bought* keywords? Is there any way to determine who has bought what/which keywords? :confused: What if they (The Big Guns) aren't a part of the solution, but part of the problem? Does that make it harder to shut this garbage down? I think you may find that the marketing departments might kick up a fight to say "keep it" but there has to be someone in those big groups that will have the sense to realise that if they don't fight it then they run the risk of losing the keywords and anyway their sites will still be defaced...

Also, can you honestly tell me that they'll all get a piece of the action? Nope, some of the competitors won't get the keywords and won't like it... They'll fight.

At worst case I'd reckon the big guns will manage to get their own sites excluded while we still suffer but I suspect that may not be the case.

What's about Symantec and McAfee, do their virus scanner warn the user about this plug-in. BO wasn't a virus at all but they add it to their databases. They should do the same with this program.

And a question to those who send them an e-mail, did it help and they removed your website?

- domi

Someone said it. Can they go to Microsoft's site, find where they offer web hosting, dedicated servers, and take a screen shot of the pages with yellow links to Dialtone? Send the image to MS's web hosting division letting them know that you were about to sign up for hosting, until you saw the GREAT Dialtone offers and you are thankful to them for putting Dialtone links on their page, heh.

Also, with any Microsoft site (MSN.com, their news sites, etc...) showing links. My feeling is that the only way to prevent this is the same way it 'infects' your computer, which is through the browser.

I wonder if competing programs could run at the same time? Other sets of links on the page as well? Or even better, it latches on to what is already there and offers users 'the original link', KaZaa's link, or *another* link?

would someone with this trash software installed please visit my website and give me a screenshot? :) I would do it myself but dont like installing trash :D

Cheers y'all :)

Here's a screen shot of your web site with TopText installed from eZula. Dialtone is all over your site...

Originally posted by markblair
Here's a screen shot of your web site with TopText installed from eZula. Dialtone is all over your site...

:mad: :angry: :mad: :angry: :mad:

Time to write a nice letter.....

Thanks mate

Nicholas - A screenshot is difficult since your site is so long. Let me explain what's there.

"CPANEL3 and Web Host Manager" -- The Words 'Web Host' are linked to dialtone.

"Dedicated Servers also come with CPANEL + ..." - "Dedicated Servers" --> dialtone.

"Dedicated Servers" Header to the second box and in the navigation bar go to dialtone

STRANGELY in this line "For more about our dedicated servers, click here." it is NOT linked and only "click here" is a link of yours. Perhaps the software is case sensitive.

On you features page "Web Server" is linked to dialtone, and "Shopping Cart" is linked to Charge.com

Dedicated Server on your order pages also linked including a lower case one... there goes the case sensitive theory.

"Filtering Software" in your TOS is linked to : http://www.software4parents.com/

I may have gotten a bit redundant, but HTH.

Sorry... I must have been writing that when the other one came it :)

Originally posted by BravoComm
Sorry... I must have been writing that when the other one came it :)

No problem - its given me more ammunition and more evidence to use against these idiots

It seems weird but am I the only one that has noticed that it looks like eZula is trying to be nice to the "Big Guys"? What I mean is I went to msn.com, microsoft.com, yahoo.com, and cnn.com and there are no links. If you go to microsoft.com/frontpage there is a link but not on their main pages. I doubt these companies have had a chance to demand their URL's not be added so my only guess is eZula didn't want to mess with the "Big Guys" even though the FrontPage site has a link to Dialtone...

Just my observation...

:angry: - lets see what they have to say.


Hello,

I am writing to make a complaint about the ezula software. I am very disturbed by what people have informed me about your advertising techniques. I currently own and operate twilight-online.net and after getting a friend to visit my site who has ezula installed, he sent me a screen shot of my website being viewed through your software. To present myself as a nice and pleasant person to you, id like to say I was very, very pissed off! (And believe me, from what thoughts are in my head at present, that's polite!)

I would like my domains twilight-online.net, twilightonline.net and all sub domains *.domain removing from your software at once. I do not appreciate having a competitors name published on my own website. If I wanted to advertise DialTone Internet, Charge.com and http://www.software4parents.com/ I would have placed links to them on my site, not your software!

I have attached a screenshot to this email and some information I was given. I am expecting a reply within 24 hours to say my site has been removed from this sneaky scheme. If I do not receive a reply within 48 hours of this mail being sent, I shall have to seek further advice as the advertisements being placed on my website could put my business in jeopardy.

Thankyou,

Nicholas Brown

------------------------------------------
Nicholas Brown (nick@twilight-online.net)
Twilight Online.net
http://www.twilight-online.net
Fax: +44 0870-138-1641
-----------------------------------------

Originally posted by markblair
It seems weird but am I the only one that has noticed that it looks like eZula is trying to be nice to the "Big Guys"? What I mean is I went to msn.com, microsoft.com, yahoo.com, and cnn.com and there are no links. If you go to microsoft.com/frontpage there is a link but not on their main pages. I doubt these companies have had a chance to demand their URL's not be added so my only guess is eZula didn't want to mess with the "Big Guys" even though the FrontPage site has a link to Dialtone...

Just my observation...


I take that back... I just checked out MSN again and saw a couple of links. It's still strange why a huge site like CNN doesn't appear to have any. At least not on the main page.

Possible complaints could also go to the Oakland, CA Better Business Bureau. They are available at http://www.oakland.bbb.org/. Since eZula is a California-based company, that would be one of many, many options. I will be writing to them by the end of business tomorrow if I don't get a response from eZula regarding a message I sent them to remove my sites. I'm going to add some words that would normally trigger their "virus" to my site to see if it has been removed so I have proof since right now there appear to be no links.

Originally posted by markblair
It seems weird but am I the only one that has noticed that it looks like eZula is trying to be nice to the "Big Guys"? What I mean is I went to msn.com, microsoft.com, yahoo.com, and cnn.com and there are no links. If you go to microsoft.com/frontpage there is a link but not on their main pages. I doubt these companies have had a chance to demand their URL's not be added [...]Not important, I suppose, but I don't know why you'd assume that they couldn't have asked to be removed. If Dialtone and the rest have had time to buy links, why wouldn't microsoft, msn, or anyone else have had time to request deletion?

Well, it appears that Lavasoft, makers of Ad-Aware 5.5, have added eZula (or TopText) to their "Parasites" list. Personally, I like the way they refer to them. Visit their site at http://www.lavasoftusa.com/. You can download Ad-Aware and from what I can tell it only removes the software that shows the links. It doesn't eliminate your site from having the links. This is, however, a step in the right direction.

Originally posted by markblair
Possible complaints could also go to the Oakland, CA Better Business BureauI wonder if they'll give you any attention, since you're complaining about a business of which you aren't a customer. I kind of hope you don't get a response from eZula, because I'm interested in seeing how --or whether -- the BBB would handle it.

Originally posted by markblair
It seems weird but am I the only one that has noticed that it looks like eZula is trying to be nice to the "Big Guys"? What I mean is I went to msn.com, microsoft.com, yahoo.com, and cnn.com and there are no links. If you go to microsoft.com/frontpage there is a link but not on their main pages. I doubt these companies have had a chance to demand their URL's not be added so my only guess is eZula didn't want to mess with the "Big Guys" even though the FrontPage site has a link to Dialtone...

Just my observation...

Yahoo has them all over too.

I would have to say that this infringes on copyright laws. And this is why:

As a web designer, I am not allowed to use a photograph/art work that someone else created in any of my advertising or web page designs without permission from the creator of the photograph/art work. Well, web design is a form of art work and is goverened by the same copyright laws.. In my opinion, they are "Altering" the my art work to suit their advertising needs, not to mention stealing away possible customers (ie. possible web hosting customers going to Dialtone...). This is an outrage and would not be accepted for any other form or art. I can't even use a song in my sites without permission yet these guys are adding in links to other sites that I never authorized.. The links also over-ride the web site links, forcing the customer to make a choice between my site and a competitor.. Most web surfers do not know about all that is required for a web site and many will think that the links are part of our web site. If they have a problem with a link, they'll write me, not eZula and since it's not my link, I can't help them..

I prefer banner ads above all else, because in the end, it's the webmaster's decision to put them in or not.. I wrote them an email and I am still waiting to hear back from them. That was 3 - 4 days ago.. :mad:

Well, just had to post my rant..

-Jamie-
<<MOD EDIT:>>
URLs may not be listed within posts. instead we ask that you set up a signature (in your profile).
<</MOD EDIT>>
WebConnection.Net, Inc.

Has anyone from WHT (moderators) sent a message to eZula regarding this scam? Their links appear all over this site and even now have invaded signatures of respected people here. I don't think some of these web hosts are intending to do business with Dialtone yet by having specific words in their signature, to a novice, it would appear that way.

i haven't read through all the posts of this thread... but what gets me is that you don't even know what you are getting extra when you install KaZaa...

if they fixed KaZaa's installation to ask to install TopText... then I would be relieved since I would have the power to stop it.

but then again, TopText won't survive as much as it does now if the installation gave everyone an option.

Originally posted by alpha
i haven't read through all the posts of this thread... but what gets me is that you don't even know what you are getting extra when you install KaZaa...

if they fixed KaZaa's installation to ask to install TopText... then I would be relieved since I would have the power to stop it.

but then again, TopText won't survive as much as it does now if the installation gave everyone an option.


Plus, even if you chose to not install it, the 90% majority of Internet users that don't watch what they're doing still would. Even with a web site you may not know the links are there and THAT is what hurts any decent business.

I have a question about this screen shot: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=135278

I see there is a warning of some sort on the screen shot. Is this something that can be added to pages? When I view the site, the warning isn't there. Was it added and then removed or was this detected (some javascript tpye of thing)???

Just got a reply from eZula:


Hello,

Thank you for your interest in eZula's new TopText technology. TopText is an optional Web browser plug-in, affirmatively chosen by users to augment their browsers' display of Web pages. TopText is a client-side application that resides on the user's personal computer and operates on content from anywhere on the Web, just like any other client-side application, including for example ISPs' proxies and the like. It overlays a web page with an extra set of contextually-relevant links, clearly differentiated in yellow from the browser's standard hyperlinks.

Extending upon the way typical Web browsers permit users to change the font size and color or hide images on a displayed Web page, TopText offers users a filter or lens to supplement their browsing experience. After users agree to use the TopText plug-in, the users are notified that yellow links overlaid by TopText are not part of the Web pages they are viewing.

We believe that TopText enriches the surfing experience by offering a willing user additional options without interfering with any of the text, design or appearance of your website. The additional links are keyed to keywords and phrases, and not to the web pages viewed. As a general matter, eZula does not exclude websites from viewing through the TopText plug-in on a site-by-site basis. We apologize if misquoted statements in a Slashdot story gave the mistaken impression that we would do so. However, TopText does not modify the text of your pages or attribute any extra links to you - your authorship of the original page remains clear and distinct. Like NBCi's QuickClick , TopText offers browsers a way to get more information about Web pages. In most cases, only a few words or phrases per page will be highlighted with TopText information.

We hope this addresses your concerns. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can answer any further questions about the TopText technology.

Furthermore, we would like to offer you the opportunity to join our other advertisers in eZula's Launch Program and run a Test Campaign with eZula to take advantage of this unique Client-Side Contextual Advertising Platform. If you are interested in running a Test Campaign and driving qualified customers to your website, please write us an email with your contact information and a description of your site to: test-camapign@ezula.com.


The eZula Team.


I hate lawsuits ...

Originally posted by Chicken
I have a question about this screen shot: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=135278

I see there is a warning of some sort on the screen shot. Is this something that can be added to pages? When I view the site, the warning isn't there. Was it added and then removed or was this detected (some javascript tpye of thing)???

Just go to my page and view the source chicken

my response


Hello
----- Original Message -----
From: web-support@ezula.com
To: nick@twilight-online.net
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:25 PM
Subject: Response from eZula User Support


Hello,

Thank you for your interest in eZula's new TopText technology. TopText is an optional Web browser plug-in, affirmatively chosen by users to augment their browsers' display of Web pages. TopText is a client-side application that resides on the user's personal computer and operates on content from anywhere on the Web, just like any other client-side application, including for example ISPs' proxies and the like. It overlays a web page with an extra set of contextually-relevant links, clearly differentiated in yellow from the browser's standard hyperlinks.

Yes yes, Ive read how fab your product is blah blah. I dont really give a dam.

Extending upon the way typical Web browsers permit users to change the font size and color or hide images on a displayed Web page, TopText offers users a filter or lens to supplement their browsing experience. After users agree to use the TopText plug-in, the users are notified that yellow links overlaid by TopText are not part of the Web pages they are viewing.

Yes, but I do not find it a good thing to have competitors links placed on my website!!!!!

We believe that TopText enriches the surfing experience by offering a willing user additional options without interfering with any of the text, design or appearance of your website.

Sorry, that is bull! You directly interfer with the HTML code of my webpage, so that is a complete lie.

The additional links are keyed to keywords and phrases, and not to the web pages viewed.

As stated above, your placing competitors links on my site, and im not happy!

As a general matter, eZula does not exclude websites from viewing through the TopText plug-in on a site-by-site basis. We apologize if misquoted statements in a Slashdot story gave the mistaken impression that we would do so. However, TopText does not modify the text of your pages or attribute any extra links to you - your authorship of the original page remains clear and distinct. Like NBCi's QuickClick , TopText offers browsers a way to get more information about Web pages. In most cases, only a few words or phrases per page will be highlighted with TopText information.

Again, this makes me very un happy. Can you please arrange for a high end member of your organisation to contact me personally please as soon as possible.

We hope this addresses your concerns. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can answer any further questions about the TopText technology.

Furthermore, we would like to offer you the opportunity to join our other advertisers in eZula's Launch Program and run a Test Campaign with eZula to take advantage of this unique Client-Side Contextual Advertising Platform. If you are interested in running a Test Campaign and driving qualified customers to your website, please write us an email with your contact information and a description of your site to: test-camapign@ezula.com.

No Thankyou - I dont care for your techniques! I make a complaint and you offer me advertising? Im not Dialtone internet, so i wont be joining your little website defacing group.

Please arrange for someone to contact me personally instead of this "auto responder"

Good day



:angry:

I'm going to call eZula's CEO personally right now and will keep you guys updated.

Just got off the phone and it seems like this issue is resolved (at least for us). He apologized about this and our URL's will be excluded as soon as possible.

Call them at 415-558-7777 and tell them that you wish to speak with Yoav Shaham.

:)

Originally posted by Kiwi
Just got off the phone and it seems like this issue is resolved (at least for us). He apologized about this and our URL's will be excluded as soon as possible.

Call them at 415-558-7777 and tell them that you wish to speak with Yoav Shaham.

:)

Too bad Im in the UK and dont fancy wasting money on an international call to them :(

Hey Marc,

Can I suggest you do a complete listing from the DNS servers at mchost and add all the domains on the server to the list and send it to this character at Ezula...

Somehow I get the impression that this won't be a final answer though. I've been told "cheque's in the post" too many times to not be cynical I'm afraid. :angry:

Since I had a look at the Whirly Wiry Web pages on Ezula I've added the code into a page in my support area...

I tested it as best I can but not with the actual application installed. Any of you "infected" if you could check that you get a warning that'd help complete the test.

<<MOD EDIT:>>
Participants may not use the Forum to direct others to any pages at their own commercial website, including informational pages.
<</MOD EDIT>>

I figure that at present this is the best we can manage except possibly consider redirecting "infected" users to a clear information page stating that we do not offer direct links as highlighted in yellow.

Here's hoping these Ezula people get a very nasty large law suit and go bankrupt and fast. Not that my claws are out or anything! :angry:

Done that. But i think you could easily disable eZula using a javascript tag ...i will work on that tonight. ;)

As a general matter, eZula does not exclude websites from viewing through the TopText plug-in on a site-by-site basis. We apologize if misquoted statements in a Slashdot story gave the mistaken impression that we would do so. However, TopText does not modify the text of your pages or attribute any extra links to you - your authorship of the original page remains clear and distinct.


I wonder if Symantec will feel this way when they find out that links are placed on their site under the words 'Virus Protection' are going to McAfee, their competition. Of course, I don't mind sending the message since I've already taken the liberty to get the screen shot. Since this appears to be getting worse before better and they claim that they aren't going to remove links, I will contact one of the following organizations regarding this issue:

Federal Communications Commission -- http://www.fcc.gov/
Federal Trade Commission -- http://www.ftc.gov/
United States Copyright Office -- http://www.loc.gov/copyright/
...And the Michigan State (my location) Attorney Generals Office

...I will let everyone know of the outcome, hopefully with something happening.

I see three problems with this business model:

1. I don't own a commercial site, yet Ezula will be making money off of my content and not reimbursing me. This means that they are altering my copylefted work without my permission. I think sites should have to opt-in to this, not opt-out. It is the link equivalent of Spam.

2. My site is not being presented as it is supposed to be. Wasn't there a case a few years back where the New York Times successfully sued a company that offered links to NYT news stories in a fram format? If I remember correctly they made two arguments: 1. The NYT content was not being presented as intended, and 2. The site was making advertising revenue from the NYT content, and impacting NYT's advertising sales/business.

3. If I owned a business, with an office, and a guy came in holding a sign promoting a competitor, I would be well within my rights to have that person arrested for trespassing. If my website were my business, shouldn't the same rules apply?

Of course, if I remember correctly, Alexa tried to do something similar...and it failed miserably :).

I sent the following feedback message to Symantec this evening regarding a McAfee link on their site that is only their because eZula made it possible. Ironically enough, the link to McAfee is on Symantec's products page. The exact problem we all have been mentioning is real, see for yourself...

I was looking at your web site today and read the following line from your Copyright statement:

"The information on this web site is protected by copyright. Except as specifically permitted, no portion of this web site may be distributed or reproduced by any means, or in any form, without Symantec's prior written permission."

Of course that is not the main reason for this message but it does have something to do with it. Have you heard of a program called TopText? How about a company called eZula? Well, eZula is a company that specializes in making software (TopText) that defaces web sites. What TopText does is alters any web site anywhere in the world with links to members sites by attaching the links to "keywords" that you don't even know you provided. For example, I was looking at the Symantec web site and nothing seemed unusual. After installing TopText and going to your products page, that changed. You have the words 'Virus Protection' listed near the top of that page. With TopText installed, the words 'Virus Protection' immediately became a link. I know this isn't a link that Symantec created because if selected, the web site viewer will go to McAfee's web site. Yes, that's right, your competitor. I doubt Symantec wants to direct potential customers to their competitor so that is why what TopText does is wrong and should be illegal, if it isn't already.

I have supplied a URL to a screen shot I took of your products page to show you the link that TopText created. Without TopText, you won't see this link so it must be installed to view. That URL is: http://www.markblair.net/symantec.htm

I also own and operate three web sites and this is bothersome to me because one of those sites is a business I run and I definitely don't want to have competitors links on my site.

I sent the company that makes TopText, eZula, a message demanding that they block my sites from their so-called "service" and received an automated response that I also posted on the web site that I provided a URL to.

I personally find this disturbing that they offer the option for the average Internet user to access other web sites even though the owner and developer of the web site didn't intend that to be done. In my opinion, this must be stopped or it will end up costing good businesses money and it is being done in a very sneaky way.

I hope that I have been of some assistance and I also hope to hear back from Symantec regarding this problem. Please note that companies that provide anit-spyware software such as Ad-Aware by Lavasoft have also added eZula to their "Parasite" lists. That should help to show what the more knowledgable Internet public think of this issue.

Sincerely,
Mark Blair

P.S. If you want the Symantec information removed from my site by the provided URL above I have no problem with that. My intention of providing is for absolutely no gain to myself but to help Symantec understand what this company is doing. I intend to make no profit off of Symantec's name and will remove those pages as soon as this problem is resolved or informed to do so by a representative of Symantec. Also, there are no direct links to those pages other than what I provided to you.

Now on to the Government agencies that can probably handle this more swiftly.

For any of you looking for legal amunition of the grounds of copyright infringement. This pdf might give you dome ideas on what to base your claims on. The questions about frames being legal may be very helpful. It talks about prior cases and stuff.
http://www.corporate.co.nz/html/documents/friedman.pdf

Also
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-334097.html?tag=mainstry

Someone should try modifying Whirly Wiry Web's EZula Detection script so that it redirects infected users to a different web page, e.g. a plain white web page with the words "Your computer is infected with EZula. Go to <<insert relevant link here>> to find out more about EZula and learn how to remove it." in big bold letters.

<script>
{
try
{
var x = new ActiveXObject("EZulaBoot.InstallCtrl");
document.location="anti-ezula-page.html";
}
catch (e)
{
}
}
</script>

Note: Adapted from WhirlyWiryWeb (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com) code by RockinFewl

See if that works...

Hello,

I am a new member over here. I am happy to see this important discussion taking place over here. Jim Wilson of Get High Forums posted a link to this thread. I've been a long time member over there - and yadda, yadda :)

Anyway, I am compiling a list of links and contact info of offending sites that are buying into this THIEF-AD system that eZula is responsible for. If anyone finds sites that are not listed on this page http://www.ipagedir.com/ezula/, you can send the info to me via the e-mail address on that page.

If you want to help compile this list of links, I welcome your help - just click on that e-mail address and let me know. Provide your user name over here so I can validate a few things from your user profile. I will send you a password via the email account registered here. After you get the password, you can use the admin panel to add any site not listed that is participating in the eZula thievery.

The reason for building this list is simple - so that anyone who wishes can quickly locate offenders and send email to them telling them how they feel about them putting there ads where they ought not to be. The more that people complain about this to the advertisers, perhaps we can influence these advertisers to pull their ads off of ezula's service and cancel their accounts.

BTW, DialTone Internet pulled their ads from eZula.com realizing that it was the wrong move to make. I called the marketing department at DialTone and asked them about it. I had a special interest in their ad links showing up because they were showing on my pages as well.

Hi.

I'm RockinFewl, from the WhirlyWiryWeb (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com), the site that first came up with the script that Websnail so kindly copied. Without giving me credit by the way. :mad:

Anyway, the script doesn't work in all cases, and that's why I'm still chasing a better solution.
I'm afraid that I found a way *still trembling*, and WHAT a way it is if you guys tell it works.

Check it out for yourself at Fighting Ezula, the Remake (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/ezula.htm)

The code's succesfully tested on normally configured IE5.01, IE5.5 and Windows 2000. Tell me what happens!

Rockin.

Originally posted by RockinFewl
Hi.

I'm RockinFewl, from the WhirlyWiryWeb (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com), the site that first came up with the script that Websnail so kindly copied. Without giving me credit by the way. :mad: Whoops... completely unintentional I assure you...

I've corrected the post above...

Originally posted by RockinFewl
Anyway, the script doesn't work in all cases, and that's why I'm still chasing a better solution.
I'm afraid that I found a way *still trembling*, and WHAT a way it is if you guys tell it works.

Check it out for yourself at Fighting Ezula, the Remake (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/ezula.htm)

The code's succesfully tested on normally configured IE5.01, IE5.5 and Windows 2000. Tell me what happens!

Rockin. Ohmigod...

That's scary... Can't test it myself as I've avoided installing the app on my machine (work machine not for beta/nasty apps). nice work Rockin... (apologies again for lack of credit - now amended)

Originally posted by RockinFewl
Hi.

I'm RockinFewl, from the WhirlyWiryWeb (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com), the site that first came up with the script that Websnail so kindly copied. Without giving me credit by the way. :mad:

Anyway, the script doesn't work in all cases, and that's why I'm still chasing a better solution.
I'm afraid that I found a way *still trembling*, and WHAT a way it is if you guys tell it works.

Check it out for yourself at Fighting Ezula, the Remake (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/ezula.htm)

The code's succesfully tested on normally configured IE5.01, IE5.5 and Windows 2000. Tell me what happens!

Rockin.



Hey Whirly,

Jeremy here. Im the one who sent you the zip file. This one seems to work better. The output it gives me is.

You have Word 2000
You have Excel 2000
You have Ezula
You don't have Ghost

Hope this helps.

Please, anyone with this installed, help us out by testing this script.

Originally posted by RockinFewl
I'm afraid that I found a way *still trembling*, and WHAT a way it is if you guys tell it works.

Check it out for yourself at Fighting Ezula, the Remake (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/ezula.htm)

The code's succesfully tested on normally configured IE5.01, IE5.5 and Windows 2000. Tell me what happens!

Rockin.


Works like a charm... Here's what my attempt told me:

You have Word 2000
You have Excel 2000
You have Ezula
You don't have Ghost

...And all is true. Nice job.

Originally posted by Curt D
BTW, DialTone Internet pulled their ads from eZula.com realizing that it was the wrong move to make. I called the marketing department at DialTone and asked them about it. I had a special interest in their ad links showing up because they were showing on my pages as well.


I think charge.com also pulled their ads because they used to be linked to the words "Small Business" and I've created a test page with those words and their link no longer appears.

I cant Believe an AntiVirus Company like McAfee uses this Spyware technology for advertizing...

It would make really good headlines dont ya think, I wish I knew some poeple who could blow the lid on this thing and throw some of these supprters on the front page. As a matter of fact I dont see why these companies couldnt be held liable for damages, just for buying the services.

I'll bet "McAfee" even have the dat files to remove it. I wont ever support any of these companies again, as a matter of fact considering that most are in the Tech Biz, they cant claim ignorance as to using this software and not knowing it wasnt violating others copyrights. This just pisses me off. I have been considering using one of the above mentioned companies services. But to know that they KNOWINGLY purchase spots on software that HACKS my pages pisses me off to no end.

Originally posted by RockinFewl


The code's succesfully tested on normally configured IE5.01, IE5.5 and Windows 2000. Tell me what happens!

Rockin.



You have Word 2000
You have Excel 2000
You don't have Ezula
You don't have Ghost
-------------------
100% Correct. :)

Good job!

:) Great cooperation guys.

I put the new script online at the WhirlyWiryWeb (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezula.asp) , together with some new info about the Toptext 'uninstall'.

An incomplete uninstall leaving a trojan-like component sitting; these Ezula chaps are unbelievable.

And erhm Websnail? I didn't notice that you posted the script in response to Colin's request. Sorry.

Comment welcome.

RockinFewl.

Agree with wired1, and even if these businesses do get out from this they have still used this spyware until they got discovered. So why not compile a list with all business names that have used it? I for sure will never use the services offered by these hi jackers.

Curt D, why not let the businesses that have removed themselves still be on the list, but with a remark. Then people can decide if they still will let them be business partners.

Nordic

What's up people,

I found a solution but haven't tested it yet. In reading through the slashdot forums I found this:


...Anyhow, we found an interesting solution that did NOT require the sending of email to Top Text. We added the meta tag MS provides to disable Smart Tag rendering. Bye-Bye Top Text links.

So, apparantly Top Text is lying. We never emailed them, all we did was add the meta tags to all of our pages, and those nasty yellow links disappeared. Apparantly, the plug-in is using the Smart Tag SDK or something, and you can easily disable it...


All though we should not have to do this in the first place we might as well protect our selfs from their tererism until we can take them down. Hope this helps everyone. Here's the tag:


<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">


I recomend everyone sends them a bill for the time spent placing the meta tag into everyone of their pages.

Peace
Wise1

wise1, I don't have this stupid software installed, don't intend to either. But, have you tried to see that it really works? The other method of ignoring miclosofts smart tags didn't work with this.

And yes, we shouldn't need to disable this and that from our webpages. What these guys are doing are in violation with all, read all, international copyrights, since they alter the original content of a webpage. Clear and simple as that.

Nordic

Nope it didn't work just tested it. :(

Oh my god.

This is from: http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezula.asp

Important. The uninstall procedure as outlined by Ezula is inadequate as it leaves EZulaBootExe (and EzulaBoot if you downloaded Ezula from the Web) sitting. These are Ezula's download/installer components. The EzulaBoot component allows to REINSTALL TopText through a Web page even, invisibly, without the user's knowing.

Originally posted by wise1

All though we should not have to do this in the first place we might as well protect our selfs from their tererism until we can take them down. Hope this helps everyone. Here's the tag:


<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">


I recomend everyone sends them a bill for the time spent placing the meta tag into everyone of their pages.

Peace
Wise1

Thanks for that. It works with my IE version which is 5.5.

I am still putting ghost links over any keywords they might sell. I am glad dialtone pulled theirs but someone else might buy and no doubt ezula will drop the rates. It is a lot of work adding style tag classes for link and hover for each font size and style the keywords may appear in.

Perhaps the parasite technology will bring out some inspired detection and prevention scripts like whirlies.

I don't believe that an anti-virus company is buying keywords with such technology!! They should be the first to make an antidote!!

Originally posted by reason


Thanks for that. It works with my IE version which is 5.5.

I am still putting ghost links over any keywords they might sell. I am glad dialtone pulled theirs but someone else might buy and no doubt ezula will drop the rates. It is a lot of work adding style tag classes for link and hover for each font size and style the keywords may appear in.

Perhaps the parasite technology will bring out some inspired detection and prevention scripts like whirlies.

I don't believe that an anti-virus company is buying keywords with such technology!! They should be the first to make an antidote!!

Where did you download TopText from? The Ezula.com website or through the Kazaa download?

They are two different versions and the tag you speak of does not work on my PC and I still see the yellow lines. It is definitally not a solution.

Originally posted by Dustbunny
BTW, has anyone checked to see what it does in Google, or any other search engine? :confused: Does this affect search engine output?

It will highlight keywords within bought keyword ads on google.com!!

Although it seems it is getting harder to find a keyword because lately advertisers seem to be pulling their contracts. I can't find web hosting or half the merchant account and credit card keywords I did yesterday.

Originally posted by JeremyL


Where did you download TopText from? The Ezula.com website or through the Kazaa download?

They are two different versions and the tag you speak of does not work on my PC and I still see the yellow lines. It is definitally not a solution.

I had toptext slipped into my kazaa media file exchanger. Where I come from that would be called a Mickey Finn.

I don't know how to find which version of toptext as it seems to be cunningly hidden. No doubt one could be rid of the pox easier.

I think you need to fiddle with your style sheets and create some classes for link and A.same annd A.same:hover to look like your body text and then ad ghost links to all the keywords they are lighting yellow. Then repeat for headers and other fonts you might use. Pain in the arse but at least ezula ignores ahrefs.

http://www.fasttrack.nu

These chaps created underlying technology for kazaa. I wonder if they envisioned their technology becoming a vehicle for the dispersion and dissemination of completely useless technologies like toptext.

TopText: because they know that our web sites just don't lead people where they need to go (to line their pockets).

What if someone decides to buy the keyword "hard" and then we have a link from hard disk going to a porno site? How the hell can we be responsible for what our own content makes people do?

Can anyone suggest a good forum where lawyers discuss issues about Internet? I think a few techy composed questions might bring about some interesting thoughts.

Originally posted by reason

I don't believe that an anti-virus company is buying keywords with such technology!! They should be the first to make an antidote!!

Unfortunately, McAfee did buy into this scam. If you go to any web site that has the words 'Virus Protection', it links to McAfee. I'm sure other words similar to that also do the same but I found them out by going to Symantec's web site. I would not be happy if I were Symantec to find out that when someone tries to purchase their software, there is a link to McAfee's site right there.

hi,

i came from another forum to this one, looks like a lot of informed webmasters are here so i thought i would join.

there is talk about using javascript to reload the current window a second time to disable toptext links on that page, i don't have toptext installed but others are saying that after a reload of the same page the links are pulled.

can others confirm or deny if this works or not?

Curt D, why not let the businesses that have removed themselves still be on the list, but with a remark. Then people can decide if they still will let them be business partners.

Nordic

Nordic,

I had considered that, but then decided to remove them to keep the list as current as I knew of sites that were currently advertising. I suppose an archive of advertisers that tried and dumped the eZula ad system could be put on another web page.

If reloading the web page removes TOPTEXT links, then using JavaScript to hard reload a web page would seem to remove the links - logically speaking.

Hi folks,
Hope you all don’t mind that I came here to talk about the ezula virus. I hope no one here feels this post is spam, I am posting here with the hope that we can defeat this loathsome ezula virus if we all pull together.

Here is the URL to a remotely hosted script that will defeat the ezula virus.
http://www.searchking.com/ezulakiller/

So far it has been working on my site. There is no charge for this script.

Also here is the URL to one page (there seem to be a lot of these popping up lately) that is dedicated to defeating this ezula virus they also have a java script that is supposed to defeat the ezula virus (I haven’t tried it so I won’t claim if it works or not)
http://www.ipagedir.com/ezula/
On this site there is also a list of companies with contact info of the companies that advertise with these scum ezula.

demoz has started a new category that is definitely worth a look.
http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Business/Allegedly_Unethical_Firms/Ezula/

It seems to me that the best way to destroy this ezula threat once and for all is by all of us taking action, contacting/boycotting ezula advertisers, contacting the news media, contacting the government and most important letting everyone you can think of know how you feel about ezula.

A question with no answer: How did a noname company like ezula come up with the financial backing and the internet clout to get listed on c/net? I don’t know if anyone else here has tried to get c/net to list your product for dl, but I can tell you from experence you need some big backing before c/net will even talk to you.

Thanks for your time:)

lots0cash-
Is this your site with the script? Why does it have to be pulled from a remote source such as this? Why can't we just load the script on our own servers?
Just curious.:)

If you are asking me if the site offering the script is mine, no it belongs to www.searchking.com

as far as the script being remotly hosted, I believe that is only temporary. From what I understand searchking is working on a verision that everyone will be able to put on their own servers.

If you are asking me if the site offering the script is mine, no it belongs to www.searchking.com
Ok, I was only curious...since both searchking.com and your domain are registered with the same email address. Thanks.:)

Searchking hosts one of my sites. the one listed in my profile, I let them register the DNS cus it was cheep and easy and I trust them;)

OK guys and gals,

I believe I have a script done and perfected about as much as can be done and the script is totally self-contained. I have put much fore-thought into making it work with different scenarios so hopefully this latest version will be flexible enough for just about any web page out there. I put the script through testing and it pretty much worked flawlessly.

Go ahead and put it on your pages and let me know what you find.

http://www.ipagedir.com/ezula/deactivate.toptext.htm

See a demonstration of the TOPTEXT Disabler (http://www.ipagedir.com/ezula/deactivate.example.htm). For this demonstration to work, you must use MSIE v4.x or later and have TOPTEXT installed.

Just picked this link off one of the mailing lists I subscribe to:
http://www.takebacktheweb.com/

Hmm... If I'm reading the "Take back the web" script correctly what this TopText does is actually add a series of styles to any Style Sheet definitions already loaded in from a site.

So, the script checks the length of the actual style sheet and looks to see if the number of styles in memory is actually bigger than those the site provided.

I'm impressed!

So, seeing as we now have a whole heap of possible approaches, which one is the easiest, less likely to expose a coding loophole and will stand the test of time?

Originally posted by wise1
[clip]I recomend everyone sends them a bill for the time spent placing the meta tag into everyone of their pages.


I have the same problem with this as I have with disabling Smart Tags on a page by page basis. I have over 10 million static pages on the websites I'm responsible for maintaining.

Editing each static page is clearly not an option.

-t

Originally posted by thewitt


I have the same problem with this as I have with disabling Smart Tags on a page by page basis. I have over 10 million static pages on the websites I'm responsible for maintaining.

Editing each static page is clearly not an option.

-t

Small suggestion.. aside from 10,000,000 being slightly unrealistic... Why don't you put in a search and replace for:

<body>


to ....

<!--#include virtual="/code file" -->
<body>

and put your code in that file... that way you can always keep the thing up to date if anything else like this turns up..

Just a thought...

I sent a message to Symantec about this a couple of days ago because there were eZula links on their site pointing to McAfee. Here's the response I got from Symantec last night:

Thank you for contacting Symantec. Yes, unfortunately we are aware of this issue, and the matter has been forwarded to our Legal department to see what recourses may be available there as well. We appreciate you taking the time to share the below information with us. To say it is annoying is putting it lightly. Let me know if you have any further questions or comments.

Kind regards,

Symantec Webmaster

Now the attention of Symantec may help this be stopped all-together. Let's hope...

Due to the nature and the posible destructiveness of what I deem to be a virus, I am not going to edit external links in this case. I do ask that any information regarding this be placed on pages without links to hosting companies, etc.

It is my opinion that proliferation of this program could and would cause a major problem for the every WHT member, whether they own a web hosting company or not, as well as people who are not members of this forum.

Again, I do ask that these informational pages be placed on non-commercial sites and pages. Thank you and good luck.

It looks like McAfee has stopped advertising via eZula and TopText. If you go to any site including Symantec's that have the words 'Virus Protection' it is no longer linked to McAfee. I think just with the companies that are pulling out, we will have a better chance at eliminating eZula alltogether. It's one thing to go after eZula and trust me, I still plan to make my point clear to them. But I think going after the advertisers will be much more effective in the long run.

Originally posted by WebSnail.net


Small suggestion.. aside from 10,000,000 being slightly unrealistic... Why don't you put in a search and replace for:
[clip]


Actually 10,000,000 static pages is just about right. We have many hundreds of customers and a significant staff of developers and designers. The number of dynamic pages on servers we manage is significantly higher than 10M, however the page generation systems can be modified to add a custom tags with only a few months of work...

Neither is a viable option however, and certainly would cost us tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to address on a page by page basis.

I'm starting to receive customer complaints now about this from some of our more savvy customers. End users are contacting customer support numbers asking about the "yellow links" on their websites that were not there yesterday. This is not a good thing.

We are not yet sure how to deal with this. Legal is involved, however it's not a copyright infringement as many people here are screaming. Your site is being rendered differently by an optional plug-in that the end user has voluntarily installed on his computer. It's no different than browsing with images off or changing the default font as far as the lawyers are concerned - at least so far...

-t

Originally posted by thewitt
...It's no different than browsing with images off or changing the default font as far as the lawyers are concerned - at least so far...

True but having images off or fonts different doesn't send customers and potential customers to your competition. I do, however, agree that this is obviously a difficult situation to take on for a lawyer or they'd already have shut down eZula. Remember, there's more than TopText out there, it's just TopText is the one that is getting all the attention.

Good luck with your situation and post the results here so the rest of us know what were up against, legally.

Thewit is correct ezula is not altering our html code. But ezula is using (without authorization) our copyrighted work for their financial gain. That is a violation copyright laws.

Originally posted by Kiwi
Just got a reply from eZula:



I hate lawsuits ...

That's funny, I got the same EXACT email from them.. Damn company.. Anyone know if it's possible to use this to forcefully download and run a TopText uninstaller?:

<object CLASSID="clsid:3D7247DE-5DB8-11D4-8A72-0050DA2EE1BE" width="1" height="1"> </object>

Or am I just wishfull thinking?

With the permission of Bob Massa over at SearchKing I am going to post this message from him.

SEARCHKING DEVELOPS A KILL FOR THE EZULA TOP TEXT VIRUS

SearchKing, Inc. published a webpage on August 4th, 2001 that offers a free script to disable the effects of the Ezula Top Text Virus. This script is a simple line of code that can easi.ly and quickly be installed on any or every page of a site and it effectively kills the Ezula script making it no longer display links to other websites.

SearchKing believes that any script or program that changes or alters the code, text or any content of a third party's website, without express permission of that thrid party, is WRONG. It is not professional, honest, ethical or even legal. SearchKing also believes that this kind of activity must be fought and stopped in way possible for the good of the internet as a whole.

Therefore, SearchKing Inc. has devoted it's own time and resources into developing a way for wemasters to defend their sites and protect themselves from this attack and offer it for free to anyone who may agree with our philosophy and not want their content altered without their permission.

The website at http://www.searchking.com/ezulakiller has the script available along with instructions and other information and links to other sites who are joining us in the fight. It also offers a fourm where we will make the source code of this program available and encourage discussion among other programmers and developers to continue working on ways of providing protection from any updates of this Ezula software
as well as any other software which may be developed in the future whose purpose would be to violate the rights of webmasters around the world.

Please feel free to distribute this message to anyone who you feel may need protection form this type of page theft or may be able to do anything in helping getting the message out that there are people out there willing to fight.

Originally posted by thewitt


Actually 10,000,000 static pages is just about right. We have many hundreds of customers and a significant staff of developers and designers. The number of dynamic pages on servers we manage is significantly higher than 10M, however the page generation systems can be modified to add a custom tags with only a few months of work...

Neither is a viable option however
Ouch!

Well in that case I guess I can understand why you'd see legal options, etc... as being more viable. Mind you, that said.. given that this issue appears to have let the cat out of the bag I would hope that you're now considering ways to make such alterations possible without requiring months and serious expense.

Something tells me that this won't be the first time we seen something like this again.

Originally posted by WebSnail.net

Ouch!

Well in that case I guess I can understand why you'd see legal options, etc... as being more viable. Mind you, that said.. given that this issue appears to have let the cat out of the bag I would hope that you're now considering ways to make such alterations possible without requiring months and serious expense.

Something tells me that this won't be the first time we seen something like this again.

For updating static web pages you can write a CGI script that'll loop through each live web folder, opening each .htm or .html or what ever extension you use and rewrite each page with the nessasary javascript code into the <head> section.. Depending on the size of each page and how many total pages you have on your box, it really shouldn't take too long..

Just a thought..

One note...
Test the script on a small directory first, before unleashing it on your web files.. One small typo and you can erase all your html files.. And that wouldn't be too good..

A small but effective PERL script could be written to swap in the code and work in such a way so as draw only a little bit of the server resources. 10,000,000 pages is a lot of pages but this script could run for 5-7 days with light server load on server resources. That way no one has to spend weeks upon weeks swapping code manually saving your techs for more important tasks.

I run PERL on my own computer to do some simple tasks such as mass deletion or whatever else I find useful (taking care of repetitive actions). PERL is better at manupulating massive amount of text-based files more effectly than any other application I have which is why if I had to, I'd make a perl script do massive repetitive updates across the board.

Certainly if we were to undertake a massive file update campaign, it would be automated as best we could. It's not as simple as just parsing static HTML files with a perl script and inserting a meta tag however.

The problem is complicated by the fact that these pages are on hundreds of different servers, some managed by us, some managed by our customers, some managed by third parties. If you just look at the active contracts, there are over 300 customers. Many inactive contracts will likely come to us looking for assistance here if this scourge continues. We will certainly contact all past and present customers and let them know that the problem exists and how to combat it.

Some of our existing maintenance contracts will get any updates for free. We'll probably lose money servicing these requests, but it's all about the customer and their satisfaction after all.

Many of these sites have pages have evolved over many years with much of the static data going back to 1995. Everything is fully standards compliant, so that's a plus, but there are examples in this mountain of data of practically every type and style of web page ever built. Some have significant style sheets, some are heavy on frames, some are PHP or Perl generated with embedded html, some are heavily dependant on Javascript and others on ASP (though we don't do Windoze any longer).

We've now had over a dozen customers contact us asking if we can help. Some think that their servers have been hacked and want us to restore them from backups! This could get really ugly.

Not a project that I'm looking forward to doing - and certainly something that shouldn't have to be done in order to stop unwanted additional advertising on our pages!

Man these guys torque me off.

-t

Originally posted by thewitt
Certainly if we were to undertake a massive file update campaign, it would be automated as best we could. It's not as simple as just parsing static HTML files with a perl script and inserting a meta tag however..... Some have significant style sheets, some are heavy on frames, some are PHP or Perl generated with embedded html, some are heavily dependant on Javascript and others on ASP (though we don't do Windoze any longer)..... and certainly something that shouldn't have to be done in order to stop unwanted additional advertising on our pages!

Man these guys torque me off.

-t Hmmm, well I really feel for you. I see your delema which I see that a simple PERL script will not remedy the problem effectively. A script of that magnitude would be pretty complex because it would have to determine all the special cases of swapping and report problem areas to the techs in case it could not convert some files effectively and all that jazz.

Yes, it would not be very cost effective.

I started a petition to eZulu, and hope that everyone will take a moment to read and sign... and get some others to do the same.


I hate the idea of someone making money off of my site.


Petition (http://www.PetitionOnline.com/toptext/)

Hi, RockinFewl here, from the WhirlyWiryWeb.

'Did some deeper research on eZula, and on what it can do to USERS (instead of to web authors).
'Made some terrible discoveries there, and wrapped the whole nitwit in a new How do I Remove eZula Completely (http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/removeezula.htm) page.

It's a quick loading, but highly interactive page, basing its content on what's installed at the user's machine.

Spread the word.

And report malfunctions please to fightingezula@whirlywiryweb.com :stickout

RockinFewl.

Is it just me or has eZula lost most, if not all, of their advertisers? I purposely left TopText installed on my work PC so I can see what affects they have on the web and I haven't noticed anything unusual the past few days. I do know that Dialtone Internet pulled out and it appears that McAfee and Charge.com also did the same. Anyone else know if this is true or not? I did read on their web site that advertisers would have the option to turn on or off their links at any time. I wonder if these companies just did that until we all forget about this...???

G'Day everyone. This is My first Post ..as I am a shy sort of person please be patient with me.

I am using 'Ad-aware' by Lavasoft, a program designed to find "spyware" on my computer and eliminate it. I was wondering if ad-aware was able to detect this problem. I was also thinking as Lavasoft is a group dedicated to wiping out spyware etc might not they be approached to tackle this problem.

It would appear that certain "almost free" hosting companies are engouraging there member to add "elements" to there pages that actually contain spyware. "Is this how they are able to offer "free" hosting"? Others are offering free software like godzilla etc (not actually saying that godzilla is infected) that contain spyware/virus programs.

Great deal you get this free web site or free program or free pier to pier software and the companies get all your infomation and customers.

A win win situation ... I think not.

Again I think it would be worth contacting Lavasoft.

The Doctor aka Laurie Hill :angry:

No need to contact Lavasoft, their current version of Ad-Aware has the tools to remove TopText. Ad-Aware 5.5 is currently out and I believe they plan to release 5.6 later this month. Either way, they already know about this problem and refer to eZula and TopText as "parasites". I think that is an appropriate term...:)

We are at 211 signatures right now.

Come on everyone and sign the petition, then get others you know to sign it.

Originally posted by macvillage
We are at 211 signatures right now.

Come on everyone and sign the petition, then get others you know to sign it.

i am webmaster for 21 web sites. i wish i can put signautre on behalf of each one. :smokin:

also i tried downloadin kazaa and my computer got formated. i don't know weather it was kazaa or something else. man i need to reload everything. i lost around 2-3 days data. damn it. :mad: :bawling:

spread the word kill eZula's TopTexts -> http://i4net.tv/ezula.php

I don't know if anyone else has thought of it this way, but EZula's "former advertisers" could very well be still paying for the service without activating the keywords they paid for.

Reason: To prevent any competitors from taking over these keywords.

I can see it now...McAfee stops paying for "Anti-Virus"-related keywords and Symantec takes over...and when a person visits McAfee.com he/she sees yellow links leading to Symantec.com...

This could very well become a sick form of web blackmail :angry:

I told a bunch of my friends, so if everyone else can do the same and spread the word, we can create some heat under eZula's @ss and force some new business practice upon them.

SurfPlus From Spedia (http://www.spedia.net/surfplus)

From that site... one of their softwares will do this...

EasyLink converts keywords into links. EasyLink gives you one-click access to offers and information that are related to what you're reading. EasyLink-converted words in your browser will appear highlighted in.

Choon

I think you all may not be aware of another scumware that is far more devastating than ezulu is. I have uncovered explicit evidence that www.kanoodle.com and www.filemix.net are partners with the porn industry and these sites are being rotated on www.disney.com as we SPEAK. I have personally been directly linked from Disney to a filthy, most dirty porn site that you can imagine. You can view the details of everything here:
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=415&pagenumber=7

That is the last page so far of the thread, so you may want to back up to the 1st page.

This is extremely bad and EVERY and ALL web sites in the world are affected by www.filemix.net

hi,

i just wanted to check how this kazaa and TopText works. but when i try to install them on my system it doesn't work.

i gone to ezula web site and gone to there automatic install page which gives me this error message. .


In order to enjoy HOTText, you should use Internet Explorer version 4 or above on Windows 95, 98, NT, or 2000.

You can download the latest version of Internet Explorer here.



i use i.e. 5.5 but it does n't work. any comments.

also if any one can please check out my web site and give me some pics of how my web site look with toptext it will be great help. my web site url is www.--------------.com (i am editing this URL to comply with form rules and because i succesfully installed this crap software so that i can test it myself how it works. ).:mad:

ok finally i got it installed. hey looks like now PowWeb Hosting is advertising for keywords like web hosting, web based e-mail and domain name.

oh man, my web site is full of sponsers links. there are links every where around this forms too.

here is the pick for it . . .

Originally posted by mahinder
ok finally i got it installed. hey looks like now PowWeb Hosting is advertising for keywords like web hosting, web based e-mail and domain name.

oh man, my web site is full of sponsers links. there are links every where around this forms too.

here is the pick for it . . . ouch!.. i contacted Matt about this too.. wonder if he's gonna add the toptext killer script o wht forums soon?

:cool: Another request for a favor at the fine chaps (and lasses) of WebHostingTalk:

I just put an article about Surf+ detection online:
http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezulasurf.asp

If someone could please check that out before it gets known by a larger audience.. that would be.. erhm.. great!.

Direct bug reports, remarks or plain comments to this thread,
or to fightingezula@whirlywiryweb.com

Thanks.

RockinFewl :) WhirlyWiryWeb.com

Just thought I would point out...it doesn't look like it works with IE6!!

I wanted to check it out, kinda curious ya know.

Mike

I was just wondering what the best solution is so far?

I have tried takebacktheweb.com's solution and it redirects me even though I have installed adaware and removed cookies. Doesn't seem to be working for me at all. I don't have any of the programs mentioned on takeback the web either.

Haze --

The TakeBackTheWeb script is based on the very first eZula detection script by the Whirly Wiry Web. I notified them the recent changes, but apparantly their TBTW site doesn't get updated...

Best methods at this time are:

For an integrated solution that removes TopText hyperlinks:
http://www.searchking.com/ezulakiller
Seachking's solution is built on a later detection script.

The latest detection script, including one that detects Surf+ is available at the source:
http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezulasurf.asp

Those scripts @ whirlywiryweb don't seem to work correctly either :/ I can't use searchking because of the restrictions, and it just refreshes which my advertisers wont accept. I hope these companies go down hard. The amount of time I have waisted trying to fix this problems is just outragious. I have contacted eZula and got that dreded autoresponce, then sent another and have not recieved a responce as of yet. I asked them to remove my domains from there service is all. Is that to much to ask?

Originally posted by RockinFewl
Haze --

The TakeBackTheWeb script is based on the very first eZula detection script by the Whirly Wiry Web. I notified them the recent changes, but apparantly their TBTW site doesn't get updated...

Best methods at this time are:

For an integrated solution that removes TopText hyperlinks:
http://www.searchking.com/ezulakiller
Seachking's solution is built on a later detection script.

The latest detection script, including one that detects Surf+ is available at the source:
http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/q/ezulasurf.asp

For those who browse with javascript disabled (and many do) none of these scripts are effective.

What is needed is a server side detection via perl or php that could redirect the user either to a page explaining about the plugins, or reload the page (since this seems to remove the links).
This type of script could be extended as needed to address similar other plugins.

My 2 cents

The good news is that better than 90% of the browsers have JavaScript enabled - of course that was a while back as far as the record had it.

Hmmm, don't think one could make a server-side solution since it all happens on the client side. If we are to fight this thing, we will need to create effective client-side scripts/ActiveX programming or convince people to uninstall TopText and similar software by giving them a good incentive to do so (i.e. makes windows less stable, crashes computers more frequently, etc., etc.,).

we have placed a page that will inform users as to the legal issues surrounding ezula and others like them:


Ezula.Com, the Ebola of the Internet, attacks unsuspecting websites!

CORPORATE CAPITALISTIC COMMUNISM
By: R Scarfone 09/18/2001


http://ezulafacts.com




**Ezula incorporation is registered through the california secretary of state, Bill Jones as being active and in compliance. they are registered at the address of:
555 Florida Street suite #407
San Francisco, Ca. 94110.
The agent of record is: Thomas Cervantes at the address of:
461 Second Street suite #332
San Francisco, Ca. 94107
the control number for The Ezula Inc. is: c2174312
Ezula Inc. went in to business on: 8/25/1999
Their telephone number is: (415)-518-7777






rock:angry:

i noticed that marc from mchost posted on here, and since he's the host of my domain, i figured i'd post. i'd really appreciate it if he WOULD send a list of all the domains he hosts to eZula so they can all be blocked. i emailed them myself, but since they don't do it on a "site-by-site" basis, i guess i'm pretty much screwed otherwise. my domain is not a commericial one, so i suppose i'm not as effected as the ones who run their business online. but still.. if i write something about how i went shopping for clothes, i don't want the word "clothes" linked to some online department store, nahmean? that's just crazy. i downloaded kazaa a long while ago, and have never updated it, so i have never had the virus. but that doesn't mean my viewers aren't getting advertisements thrown in their faces, when i specifially bought and paid for a domain without sponsership or banner ads just so THAT WOULDN'T HAPPEN. :angry:

i signed the petition, and sent the link to other domain owners that i know, because i'm sure they don't want their personal sites used as a marketing tool for the highest-bidders anymore than i do.

According to eZula, they aren't going to "block" any web sites from their so-called "service" even if you send in 100 of them to be blocked. The good news is that it appears that advertisers are pulling the plug on this type of advertising. Here's what I suggest we do about this since even big guys like Symantec haven't been able to shut them down, yet. We should boycott ANY and ALL companies that are currently or have recently advertised using eZula. This includes companies like McAfee, Dialtone Internet, Charge.com, and the list goes on. Each, in my opinion, had full knowledge of the effects eZula would have on the hosting community and their only interest was the money they would make. Send them all letters letting them know why you won't buy their products. I plan to. If anyone has a COMPLETE list of all the advertisers, please post them here. I already notified Symantec about McAfee links being on their site and McAfee since has stopped using eZula.

The following site has a list of ezula advertisers and ways to get in touch with them http://www.ipagedir.com/ezula/

Originally posted by markblair
...Each, in my opinion, had full knowledge of the effects eZula would have on the hosting community and their only interest was the money they would make.
I'd actually argue that this was a case where the marketing departments got ahead of themselves and didn't consider that they themselves would be at risk from competitors or non-relevant sites... I also reckon they didn't see this as any different from banner advertising.

I suspect if they had run the FULL concept by their own inhouse web design teams they'd have been jumped on and given a good whack upside the head.

The other thing to consider is that TopText was offering "trial runs" to show comanies "how effective" it was (and boy was it ever!! NOT!!) so these companies may have just said "ok, so it's free, why not?" without really considering the implications.

Personally I'd give them a chance to redress the balance... It's pretty obvious that a lot of the companies have gotten the message and dropped the concept like a hot potato. Aside from anything else, how the heck do you boycott a company that you use for virus protection for at least the next 6 months because you've already paid.

Just thought I'd redress the balance... you have to remember that sales and marketing people can be a "little" overzealous sometimes and I imagine that one or two individuals may be looking for new employ after this little debackle.

Originally posted by WebSnail.net
I suspect if they had run the FULL concept by their own inhouse web design teams they'd have been jumped on and given a good whack upside the head.

True. Since eZula is already known for lying to the general public about what their "service" does it is entirely possible they lied to these companies about what TopText does. Plus, giving them free trials would just put it over the top... And that I do know they did.

Originally posted by WebSnail.net
...how the heck do you boycott a company that you use for virus protection for at least the next 6 months because you've already paid.

I'm sure many of the companies that had their links in TopText are used by many on this board and it is not entirely possible to just stop using them altogether. That's why I recommend Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus. :) IMHO it is much better than McAfee and updates are available on a much more regular basis. I use Norton at home and McAfee at work (not my choice) and I'm constantly having to battle each new virus at work and have never even come close to needing to do so at home. Again, just my thoughts...

Originally posted by markblair
That's why I recommend Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus. :) IMHO it is much better than McAfee and updates are available on a much more regular basis. I use Norton at home and McAfee at work (not my choice) and I'm constantly having to battle each new virus at work and have never even come close to needing to do so at home. Again, just my thoughts... LOL :D As it happens I'm planning to boycott McAfee on the basis of their clinic performance of late and lack of ability to listen to a number of known bugs... All "off topic" though... but point taken... Symantec here I come!!
:)

It looks like another spyware application called Gator is ready to head to court after an advertising company is sueing them. Read the following article for more information...

http://www.zdnet.com/zdfeeds/msncobrand/news/0%2C13622%2C5096264%2C-hud00025nshm3%2C00.html

I also read the following quote by the particular advertising company and thought it made perfect sense and has the same meaning for companies like eZula and the makers of Surf+.

"By placing ads on other companies' Web sites without their authorization, this deceives the consumer by visually altering the Web sites; it falsely suggests some affiliation between the Gator ads and the host Web site, and it interferes with the revenues of the Web sites," the IAB's Webster said.

Personally I think each company that tries these deceptive practices to gain revenue will have not only their day in court but will lose so much business that they won't stay around. Already TopText is making less of an impact and let's hope that Surf+ and Gator happen to fall down that same hole.

lol I guess the people who are have the "yellow underline" missed this? http://www.drirc.net/notice.gif

Originally posted by Kiwi
It looks like their license agreement is not valid :stickout

Read this:


When clicking Next you are asked to choose the directory where you wish to install KaZaa - and not the option to opt-out. ;)


[B]Kiwi, I downloaded the KAZAA software just now, and i couldnt help it notice, that I was displayed with the following things in this order

1. http://www.drirc.net/ezula/notice.gif
2. http://www.drirc.net/ezula/op1.gif
- By default, it automatically went to custom, and unchceked the top text crap... Can anyone confirm this? OR did it just do this for me?
3. If you choose full installation, it doesnt even check top text www.drirc.net/op2.gif
4. and basedon what i can see, I dont see how it DOESNT give you the "option to opt-out"

Or were you trying to say not everyone knows what that means?

when i first installed kazaa, I clearly was sure to uncheck silly programs like toptext, I guess all the people who are "infected" as some might say, didnt bother....
www.drirc.net/ezula/op1.gif and op2.gif

This is new because the previous install didn't give those options. However, when anyone here mentioned the option to "opt-out" they are talking about having their sites "blocked" from this stupid service. As a website owner, I don't give a $%@# if someone installs TopText. I don't want eZula or any other parasite company to alter my site, whatsoever. They didn't ask to do it and they have no legal right to do so. That is how I take the words "opt-out" but it is nice to see that they don't require the extras to be installed.

true true
your right

IBM signs up for advertising with eZula TopText. Get the advertiser info at ThiefWare.com (http://www.thiefware.com/thief.ads/).

You'd think that after all the uproar over such unscrupulous practices, they would avoid making a bad situation worse.

LookSmart is planning a partnership with eZula. See the eZula press release (http://www.ezula.com/news/press_release101501.asp).

Look for the remarks:"We are happy to be a part of eZula's efforts to expand the Internet's power to educate online users," said Irma Morrison, vice president of the Computer Language Company, publisher of Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. "With our more than 17,000 computer definitions, illustrations, photos, charts and diagrams added to eZula's innovative online reference tool, users can benefit from a greater understanding of technology to leverage the Internet more effectively. Together, eZula and Computer Desktop Encyclopedia are making the Internet more accessible to the consumer."We really need to e-mail and call these people about this thing. If they get enough feedback, LookSmart may abandon the idea as a bad one. If they don't then we can start calling them “LookDumb (http://www.lookdumb.com) (www.lookdumb.com)” instead.

I guess this little problem isn't quite over yet. Well, I did hear that the recording industry is going after KaZaa which is one program that distributes TopText. I hope they disappear quicker than Napster did. But, on to stopping eZula... :rolleyes:

Thanks for the information Curt D, I will be starting my own little e-mail campaign against every company that advertises with eZula.

Just some usefull links;

http://www.thiefware.com/ They have a disabler for your webpages and much more info about this thiefware!
http://www.suniltanna.com/ezula.html
http://graphicdesign.searchking.com/aug2001.html
http://gethighforums.com/bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=ScumWare+-+The+Net+Fights+Back!&number=28

oh man do I hate these guys. It is really clever but it should be highly illegal for obviouse reasons offcourse.

I'm currently running a server in Australia and living in the UK. Our Internet Privacy Act 1992 and our Cyber-terrorism Act, 1994 considers *all* spy-ware and bandwidth stealing (such as eZula) as a malicious mass-distributed program. Australian law considers all members of the board and investors of a company such as eZula criminals. Fortunantly, some of the principal investors had assets based in Australia. Now, these have been frozen and the Australian Government is dishing out parts of these assets to webmasters who have been attacked by eZula. There has also been a campaign against eZula's principal investor in Australia, Telstra. This involves lots of angry people ringing up Telstra's toll free 1800 numbers on the one day to overload their call centers more @ http://www.antitelstra.com/

In the meantime keep checking anti-eZula sites for server patches and the like.


STOP EZULA!!!

Who is currently advertising with toptext using words related to hosting : hosting,dedicated..etc?:angry:

Hello Angel78,

Currently no one seems to be advertising under the keywords hosting or related Webmaster keywords. There are days when someone does spot these scoundrels, but once they are spotted they don't advertise for more than one day because they start to get angry emails and they are gone the next day. It's hard for ThiefWare.com to catch those links if they disappear in one day.

It doesn't happen very often and when it does happen, no one seems to take down the offenders info for recording on the advertiser list at ThiefWare.com (http://www.thiefware.com/thief.ads/).

ThiefWare has more information on “Flyswat” and “Gator” in the knowledgebase area.

Mailbits.com is also promoting Gator on their site. I found this page with the link: http://www.mailbits.com/Unsubscribe/c-default.htm

Unless your desparate, dont use Internet Explorer and you wont have the problem.

Seems to me if everyone switched to netscape, the scumware problem would go away

Seems to me if everyone switched to netscape, the scumware problem would go away

Probably would - everyone would be waiting to view sites instead of actually seeing them ;)

Ive used both netscape and IE for 4 years. The load time isnt even an issue. And besides, you wouldnt have to look at "page cannot be displayed"
anymore

:)

we are all complaining because we did not think about it first.....once a page has left the web server its not free for all yo...dont hinder progress.....this is how technology moves forward............they are not injecting anything into your site, only into the site that the viewer is looking at because they have chosen to install the software....freedom...... the pillar of the internet

Hello,
I disagree. If I was a delivery company for Time magazine or even a retailer and it was my job to get it from place to place and show it to you and another magazine company paid me to edit it along the way to include there ads that would be wrong. This may not be the best analogy but it's the best I can come up with in 2 minutes at 1:30am.
My website is the way I wanted it to be. I could understand puting and ad in a browser somewhere where you new for sure it was an ad but this is wrong.
It could lead to all kinds of confusion, if our page links to another provider they may think we're partners? Does it affect SSL?
I will research the issue a little more and post a warning about this to my ISP customers. My gut reaction is to firewall there netblock but that equates to censorship and is even worse :-(...

Sam

I have had Kazaa installed for a long time and I have never even once seen one of these yellow background coloured links?

Not once.

I too have had Kazaa installed for a while, but i think (not sure) that you are given the option to install Top Text.

While it didnt install on my computer, It did on 3 friends computers.

If we allow this to happen, what is next? I have a feeling in a while you wont be able to view the internet without using XP, which will have the XML tags put in with the next release.

The pillar of freedom on the internet is pretty much gone the route of commercialism, and we are the ones being sold for someone elses ill gotten booty. This is a direct atack on what we do when we are on the net. I for one will not ever knowingly follow a link to any site that is or comes from a link created in this method.

If i create something, it should be free from tampering. No one has the right to offer something for money to someone else based on my work.

Have a nice sunday

Relyc,

They are there if you have TopText installed. You may have disabled the option to install TopText when you installed KaZaA.

Originally posted by Curt D
Relyc,

They are there if you have TopText installed. You may have disabled the option to install TopText when you installed KaZaA.


Yea that's probably it, I never let a program install extras like that.

Get kazaa lite, spywareless kazaa

Dude, you're only a year late, lol

well actually 355 days late ... LordLardo had another 10 days till a year was up.

I think in a year's time he/she's moved onto another program by now...