Moment they did that, they stopped being distributors of adware, instead they became distributors of viruses. The first, while unethical and unwelcome, is legal, the second is a criminal offence. I will be looking for the company concerned to be duly prosecuted.
First Adware Program Able to Propagate Across Instant Messenger Network; BuddyLinks Targets America Online IM Users, Then Serves Ads
Webroot Software, a producer of award-winning privacy, protection and performance software, today announced it
now offers protection against a new breed of spyware that utilizes worm capabilities to propagate itself across the Internet through users' instant messenger networks.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-19-2004/0002112930&EDATE=

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