Hey all you Parasite and Spyware Warriors. Founders of a well known spyware - adware - parasite distributor are finalists for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Ernst & Young. A couple years ago they were ranked the 31st fastest-growing new business in the U.S. by Entrepreneur Magazine. This really irks me! Just because they have 80 million users does not mean they are worthy of awards. Did anyone look into their business model before nominating them? Companies like this are bad, not only for the affiliate industry but the entire online marketing industry.
How about some awards to Ben Edelman or Kellie Stevens, President of AffiliateFairPlay.com for FIGHTING adware and parasites, instead of rewarding companies for bad behavior!
Much of this company's success is due to the promotion of screensavers through its websites,
Freeze.com,
ScreenSaver.com, "as well as thousands of sites throughout the Internet." (Check the Google links above to see the stellar reputation each of these sites have.) Those THOUSANDS of sites BTW are affiliates that help distribute this crap - many without even realizing that what they are spreading around can come back to
bite them in their own wallets. How? Not only are some of the apps probably parasitic, but the more stuff like this is spread around, the more consumers buy anti-spyware software. Much of the anti-spyware software out there is actually
FILLED with other spyware and many of these programs overwrite affiliate links, block affiliate ads and/or delete affiliate cookies.
Press Release
Freeze.com Founders Named Finalists for EY Entrepreneur of the Year
"Ernst & Young announced that the Webers are finalists for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2006 Award. According to Ernst & Young, the awards program was designed to recognize outstanding entrepreneurs on a regional, national and global level who are building and leading dynamic and growing businesses. Robert, Ryan and Aaron Weber were selected as finalists by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a gala at the Marriott City Center in downtown Minneapolis on June 6th."
"Freeze.com, LLC is a specialist in online marketing services utilizing over 80 million registered users. Since 2001 Freeze.com has been a leading provider of results-based interactive marketing services. Much of the company's success is due to the promotion of screensavers through its websites, Freeze.com, ScreenSaver.com and Wallpapers.com, as well as thousands of sites throughout the Internet. The June, 2004, Entrepreneur magazine ranked Freeze.com as the 31st fastest-growing new business in the U.S. according to D&B records and internal documents."
Adware Awards Sheesh!
Linear Mode
