14 DAY TRIAL // The story so far: the Federal Trade Commission urged AdultFriendFinder, a company that has longly been criticized for its marketing strategy, to clean its advertising campaigns and stop installing malicious software without users' authorization. Moreover, several AFF adverts were displayed every time a common search was conducted through the popular web search engines. "Such ads were displayed to consumers who were searching online using terms such as 'flowers', 'travel', and 'vacations'. In some cases, defendant's sexually explicit ads were distributed using spyware and adware.," FTC wrote in a public statement.
So, AFF agreed and swore that it would attempt to install its software only when the user agrees with it. And the amount of malicious content distributed by AFF is seriously decreased, but it seems like the company's affiliates are the ones creating problems. Alex Eckelberry, of Sunbelt, wrote on the official blog of the security vendor that one of the AFF affiliates (which I prefer to remain anonymous because I really don't want to generate traffic for this kind of websites) posted spam comments on one of his blogs. Obviously, this was an attempt to lure visitors to its website using pornographic content.
"These were posted on one blog that had as its topic AFF's use of porn in advertising, and another about AFF ads appearing on MySpace," Alex Eckelberry wrote. Visiting the website promoted by the spam comments bring the users to a page full with AFF advertisements. "Incidentally, that ad is being served by AFF," the security expert added.
Now, let's analyze it a little bit. AFF was criticized because it used pornographic content in order to advertise its services. Following FTC's decisions, the company was forced to clean its marketing strategies and avoid installing or displaying malicious ads without users' approval. And, here it is: a cleaner version of AFF that doesn't assault the Internet consumers with pornographic content. But it seems like the AFF people are smart enough to find an alternative...