| Bad or Undisclosed Behavior |
| Installs Trojan horses |
Jessica Simpson Screensaver is bundled with a number of Trojan horses, or applications that can secretly install additional
programs without disclosing to the user that any installation is occurring. These new, undisclosed programs may
include spyware and adware programs, components, and toolbars. These Trojan horses include MediaMotor, WinAD,
Prutect, and DollarRevenue.
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| Fails to identify itself as source of pop-up ads |
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Although some of the pop-up ads identify themselves as products of the bundled Zango software, many of the pop-up ads
that appear on the user's computer do not identify themselves.
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| Bundled applications cannot be closed |
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None of the bundled applications included with the Jessica Simpson Screensaver can be closed by a typical user. They must be closed by killing the individual processes from within the Windows Task Manager.
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| Uninstallation is multi-step and ultimately unsuccessful |
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While Jessica Simpson Screensaver comes with an uninstaller, this only uninstalls the screensaver itself, not the
bundled applications. None of the bundled applications includes an uninstaller, making uninstallation very
difficult for a typical user. At least one of the bundled applications, GetMirar, actually requires the user to download a
separate uninstaller from their website. Also, attempts to uninstall all of the bundled applications were unsuccessful
for us, as pop-up advertisements continued to appear after all the applications appeared to be uninstalled.
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| Installs stealth dialer |
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Jessica Simpson Screensaver is bundled with a stealth dialer called AvenueMedia (also known as "Money Tree").
Stealth dialers attempt to dial up numbers (such as 'adult' sites) with the user's modem, thereby incurring
charges for the user.
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| Installs adware |
Jessica Simpson Screensaver is bundled with a number of programs that display advertisements on the user's computer.
These include: e2give, WindUpdates MediaGateway,
MediaAc, begin2search, BetterInternet, SafeSurfing, Popuppers, DollarRevenue, GetMirar, and WinAD.
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| Installs spyware |
Jessica Simpson Screensaver is bundled with a number of programs that track the user's web habits (e2give, GetMirar,
EzuLa) or log the user's search terms (Safesurfing).
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| Attempts to close anti-spyware and anti-virus software |
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Prutect, one of the applications bundled with Jessica Simpson Screensaver, attempts to close or disable
various anti-spyware and anti-virus applications (such as Adaware, Norton Internet Security, and Spybot Search &
Destroy) if it finds them on the user's computer.
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| Redirects access to web merchants |
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e2give, one of the applications bundled with Jessica Simpson Screensaver, redirects users when they access
various web merchants in order to claim affiliate fees from the merchant sites.
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| Redirects web searches |
Safesurfing and GetMirar, two of the applications bundled with Jessica Simpson Screensaver, redirect users'
web searches form legitimate urls to rogue websites)
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| Modifies Internet Explorer |
EzuLa, one of the bundled applications, installs an Internet Explorer plugin that tracks the user's web habits.
Another bundled application, GetMirar, installs a toolbar into Internet Explorer that redirects user searches.
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| Interferes with use of Internet Explorer |
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The GetMirar toolbar interferes with a user's use of Internet Explorer by displaying roll-over advertisements that obscure the browser window beneath them.
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| Displays pop-up ads |
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The adware that is bundled with the Jessica Simpson Screensaver causes numerous pop-up ads to appear on the user's desktop. Sometimes these ads are triggered by a user's search; sometimes they appear without any action being performed by the user (e.g., just leaving the computer alone).
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Badware Behavior