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Methods and Effects of Spyware

Methods and Effects of Spyware (PDF) is my written response to the FTC‘s call for comments (PDF), leading up to their April 19 workshop on spyware. In this document, I explain how spyware works, including presenting specific personal information transmitted by both Gator and WhenU. (The WhenU transmissions are particularly notable because these transmissions seem to violate WhenU’s own privacy policy.) Other sections of the document discuss installation methods of spyware (with special consideration of the technical methods used in drive-by downloads), frequency of advertisement display, and performance and security effects of spyware.

I hope to attend the FTC’s April workshop, and I would be particularly pleased to hear from others who will be there or who have comments on this issue.

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New Publications about Spyware Legislation and Regulation updated March 19, 2004

Some months have passed since my last work on spyware — Documentation of Gator Advertisements and Targeting (spring 2003) and my expert testimony in the matter of Quicken Loans and Wells Fargo v. WhenU (not available on the web) (summer 2003).

This week I’ve been working on a new subsection of this web site, “Spyware”: Research, Testing, Legislation, and Suits, for which two new entries are now available:

A Close Reading of the Spyware Control Act takes a careful look at the spyware legislation recently passed in Utah and now awaiting the governor’s signature. This legislation requires software that transmits users’ usage data (web sites visited, etc.) to provide appropriate disclosures in a license agreement (in plain language, actually presented to users, etc.), and to provide an uninstall routine. Seems pretty uncontroversial? That’s what I thought, but in fact the bill has raised some opposition from big .COM companies that seem to think the legislation is actually a bad idea — even as they are among the sites most intensively targeted by spyware pop-up ads. Have these companies missed the boat? Or have I? Check out the article — including their letter (PDF) and my paragraph-by-paragraph response — and decide for yourself.

Methods and Effects of Spyware (PDF) is my written response to the FTC‘s call for comments (PDF), leading up to their April 19 workshop on spyware. In this document, I explain how spyware works, including presenting specific personal information transmitted by both Gator and WhenU. (The WhenU transmissions are particularly notable because these transmissions seem to violate WhenU’s own privacy policy.) Other sections of the document discuss installation methods of spyware (with special consideration of the technical methods used in drive-by downloads), frequency of advertisement display, and performance and security effects of spyware.

I hope to attend the FTC’s April workshop, and I would be particularly pleased to hear from others who will be there or who have comments on this issue.

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Akamai Technologies (teaching materials) with Thomas Eisenmann, and Eric Van den Steen

Edelman, Benjamin, Thomas R. Eisenmann, and Eric J. Van den Steen. “Akamai Technologies.” Harvard Business School Case 804-158, March 2004. (Revised June 2010.) ( educator access at HBP. request a courtesy copy.)

As the leading content delivery network, Akamai helps Internet companies deliver Web site content to end users with fewer delays and lower costs. Describes the strategic management challenges facing Akamai in early 2004. The company is poised to offer its next generation of services for enterprise customers, which will allow them to run Internet-enabled applications (“Web services”)—on demand, with minimal capital investment—from Akamai’s network of 15,000 servers located in ISP facilities at the Internet’s “edge”—close to end users. Many large enterprise software companies have developed proprietary platforms for creating and managing Web services. Akamai must decide which of these software companies would be attractive partners and whether it can and should remain uncommitted to a platform as it helps customers deploy Web services. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

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New Site Online

Welcome to my new site!

I’ve finished my time at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and will therefore be publishing future work on this site rather than on the Berkman Center’s servers. But old links should remain operational indefinitely, and I’ll maintain a single listing of publications that includes my work there as well as subsequent projects.

Despite the change of venue, my substantive interests remain largely the same. In the coming months, look for new articles about Internet filtering (notable developments in Asia and the Middle East), about domain names (evaluation of new gTLDs, and documentation of the controversial practices still used by some registrants), and about pop-up advertising (programs like Gator and WhenU remaining in the spotlight).

I have also begun to think about my economics Ph.D. dissertation — a major undertaking, of course, but a project I’m particularly excited about. I can’t yet say precisely what I’ll be writing about — but I wouldn’t be surprised if my articles included analysis of the domain name industry, of pay-per-click advertising, and perhaps even of online travel services. More details in the coming months.

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Alternative Perspectives on Registrar Market Share: The Fortune 1000, the Forbes International 500, and the Yahoo Directory – Revisited (2003 Update)

Alternative Perspectives on Registrar Market Share: The Fortune 1000, the Forbes International 500, and the Yahoo Directory – Revisited (2003 Update). (November 2003)

Registrar market shares are measured in selected subsets of domain names, providing a basis for comparison with overall registrar market shares across the entire domain name market. Registrar market shares are found to vary dramatically across these subsets, with implications on the future customer retention rates of the corresponding registrars.

 

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Technical Responses to Unilateral Internet Authority: The Deployment of VeriSign “Site Finder” and ISP Response

 

Technical Responses to Unilateral Internet Authority: The Deployment of VeriSign “Site Finder” and ISP Response. (October 2003) With Jonathan Zittrain.

Much of the day-to-day functioning of the Internet is thought to be “self-governing”: Engineers operating Internet systems at participating institutions (including ISPs) make daily decisions that help keep traffic flowing efficiently, without having to forge formal agreements with each other and without having to adhere to formal rules set out by a governing body. For those functions that are thought to require centralized coordination, organizations like ICANN have come to exist, and ICANN’s proper scope of “jurisdiction” remains in tension with the prior self-governing model. Arguments about the need for, and proper scope of, centralized coordination in part depend on the reliability and effectiveness of these informal self-governing alternatives.

A recent action by the registry of domain names ending in .COM and .NET — the creation of a “Site Finder” service to which Internet users are now directed if they ask for any unassigned name — has provoked reaction by ICANN as well as by individual network engineers and the institutions that employ them. As ICANN’s policy reaction is still unfolding, we sought to find out just how much the summed actions of the Internet engineering community affected Site Finder’s adoption. In the absence of any reaction, Site Finder would function for nearly all users seeking .COM and .NET names. However, as network engineers choose to adopt certain “patches,” Site Finder’s functionality is blocked for users of the corresponding networks. With help from data gathered by Alexa through users of its toolbar browser plug-in, we find that several large networks have already blocked Site Finder and that approximately 9% of users likely therefore no longer receive Site Finder content. We find particular evidence of blocking of Site Finder by networks outside of the United States — most notably, much of China.