A guy named paperghost over at Vital Security has written a scathing editorial on Patchous recent MVP award status. I'd like to point out that the opinion expressed herein is not that of Neowin, so don't shoot the messenger! -no pun intended.
If you'd created a program that installed Adware, would you be surprised if you were then awarded an MVP Award from Microsoft?
Well, step right up Patchou AKA Cyril Paciullo, creator of Messenger Plus! I first heard about this while stopping over at his website, and was surprised to find him lurking in the Windows Live Developer section on the MVP site. That's him, down at the bottom of the page.
For anyone who doesn't know about the controversy surrounding this program, its an add-on for Windows Messenger / Live / whatever they're calling it this week. Problem is, it comes bundled with LOP, a major source of annoyance and anger for web-users since, oh, ages ago. Yeah, it now gives you an improved option as to whether you want to install it or not - but that's hardly the point, is it? There's a long history here of potentially deceptive installs and the standard, yawntacular MsgPlus apologist line of "It doesn't do it anymore, so you have to let him off the hook, lol" is the kind of (amazingly poor) thinking that companies such as Direct Revenue are using to avoid legal smackdowns.
Link: Drama unfolds in comments section of Vital Security
News source: VitalSecurity
If you'd created a program that installed Adware, would you be surprised if you were then awarded an MVP Award from Microsoft?
Well, step right up Patchou AKA Cyril Paciullo, creator of Messenger Plus! I first heard about this while stopping over at his website, and was surprised to find him lurking in the Windows Live Developer section on the MVP site. That's him, down at the bottom of the page.
For anyone who doesn't know about the controversy surrounding this program, its an add-on for Windows Messenger / Live / whatever they're calling it this week. Problem is, it comes bundled with LOP, a major source of annoyance and anger for web-users since, oh, ages ago. Yeah, it now gives you an improved option as to whether you want to install it or not - but that's hardly the point, is it? There's a long history here of potentially deceptive installs and the standard, yawntacular MsgPlus apologist line of "It doesn't do it anymore, so you have to let him off the hook, lol" is the kind of (amazingly poor) thinking that companies such as Direct Revenue are using to avoid legal smackdowns.
Link: Drama unfolds in comments section of Vital Security News source: VitalSecurity
Anyway, I think the article writer has a point and I'm not stupid enough to realise that yes, its a choice to install it. It is however an add-on, not a stand-alone application that adds software that Microsoft recognizes as a threat, so basically they awarded a programmer with MVP despite this obvious status he gets on Microsofts own scanners. I see that as room for discussion.
Thanks for your comment tho
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