Who Ordered the Code Red? (or maybe) SuperSpy: Vonage’s Sketchy Dealings
I swear, I didn’t mean
to infect your computer with nasty spyware. I didn’t know.
But you’d think, with a budget of $20 million per month
at their disposal, the Vonage big shots up in lovely Holmdel, New Jersey could afford a few extra
inspections to make sure that their advertising intermediaries actually
enforce their supposed anti-spyware policies.
Ben Edelman keeps an eye out for these big brands whose subcontractors are some of the
absolute worst names in the spyware industry. Direct Revenue, 1800solutions,
you name it, they’ve used it. Last month they even won an “Effie” award from the New York American Marketing Association for the effectiveness of their recent ad campaign.
Hey, you know what else
was effective? Secretly funding guerilla militants to undermine Communist
governments in
Asia.
But really, we didn’t mean
it. We didn’t know.
