Myspace serving up Winfixer aka Drivecleaner aka Errorsafe
I have written about Winfixer a lot on this site. Patchou and Messenger Plus! have felt a lot of heat from me because of the Sponsor Program pimping Winfixer - CiD ended up editing MP! users' HOSTS file to block it. Activewin.com have also been criticised by me, several times, for allowing Winfixer advertisements to appear on their site.
Now MySpace have been accused of serving up Winfixer advertisements. I have not seen it myself, because MySpace is blocked on all networks for which I am responsible because of the many other risks that their users and visitors have been exposed to, so this expose is coming via The Register and Temerc, an anti-spyware crusader, who let us know by email of the article.
The Register article can be found here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/24/myspace_accusation/
I have said this many times, but I strongly recommend that MySpace be blocked on your networks. Don't let your kids go there. Don't let your employees go there. It simply isn't safe.
MySpace cannot ignore this problem, or stonewall and hope it will go away - it won't - and the antispyware community are not inclined to let such problems be swept under the carpet or forgotten. I certainly don't.
The MySpace articles are being sourced from Rapid Media Right Media, the same provider that CiD uses to source advertisements for the Messenger Plus! sponsor program. Methinks its time to start putting some heat on Rapid Media Right Media as well as the primary source of the problem.
The more publiclity this problem gets, the better. I may adjust my network controls to allow on me to access myspace so that I can monitor this situation and join the antispyware community in putting the same pressure to bear on MySpace as has been put on other sites and software purveyors in the past.