Using Patriotism as Bait…
Who could resist? “Show your support for our troops by downloading our free cursors!” says MyFreeCursors.com. One click, and your mouse pointer is an American flag. That click implies that you consent to their terms. The terms are that eUniverse Inc. has the right to watch your every move on the Internet. What’s more, the policy indicates that eUniverse has the right to install other software in the future on the users’ computer — and uninstalling the cursor program won’t remove this additional software from their system.
A spokeperson for EUniverse claims that they are not in the spyware business and that customer response to the product has been positive. Excuse me but, I don’t know many people that would think this is good business practices. I believe that they did receive some positive feedback from a few people but those people surly didn’t know about the covert software keeping tabs on them.
MSNBC.com also reports some shady dealings within EUniverse, …on April 16, when eUniverse was forced to lower revenue expectations for the current quarter, and its stock price quickly fell by 25 percent. Three weeks later, the firm announced the good news from earlier in the year had been a mistake. On May 6, the company said its two prior quarterly announcements “should not be relied upon” — restated financial results will actually be lower.
Two days later, the company disclosed that the Securities and Exchange Commission had opened an “informal inquiry” into the company’s finances, and Take-Two Interactive CEO Jeffrey Lapin had resigned from the firm’s board of directors. A shareholder lawsuit soon followed.
May 27th, 2003 at 11:45 am
No worries friend, I wont’ fall into the same trap you did. :-0