Rick Carlson Former Presdent/CEO Aluria Software Responds

RickCarlson1 wrote the following post at 03-05-2006 3:21 AM:
You asked for a response from Aluria, here you go - please post it on Castle Cops accordingly:

I must ask you Robin, why so bitter? I see you, and small group of other people, generally competitors that hide behind aliases and screen names, continuing to bring up old news as though it is new, and distorting and distorting facts to the point where even I believe Aluria is terrible company - my god lets burn down the offices now before Aluria destroys the ozone layer too!!!

I always debate whether to answer charges by obviously biased propagandists who show little concern for the truth, but when I see a respected journalist and reviewer like PC Magazine’s Neil Rubenking raise questions about your characterization of Aluria (as any critical thinker would), and then I see you attack him too, I feel it is my obligation to stand up and point out some inconsistencies as well.

As the former president and CEO of Aluria, let me just say as loud as I can in electronic text - YES, ALURIA DID, IN 2004, CERTIFY WHENU IN OUR SPYWARE SAFE CERTIFICATION PROGRAM. AND YES, WE LICENSED THEM ANTI-SPYWARE TECHNOLGY SO THEY COULD OFFER IT FREE TO CONSUMERS! And while I am yelling in text, let me also say, "IT WAS A MISTAKE!" (Like most things in this "debate" I expect that you will take that last part out of context and post it on CastleCops, and wherever else you feel like misleading readers. Before you do though, let me explain what I mean by, "It was a mistake". It was a mistake because it opened the door for competitors and other people with hidden agendas, to question Aluria's integrity unfairly.

Now to pick-up where Neil left off - I find it interesting that you rebut the statement (one we know to be true) that you never contacted us before posting the article. You claim, according to your unconfirmable phone records, you left a message at 6:14EST and didn’t post this article until 8pm. First let me say directly, that is not true. Next let me say, even if it was true and you were interested in a truly objective story, why only wait less that 2 non-working hours for us to respond to a message you say you left on a voicemail? This was clearly not breaking news that was time sensitive – if you were interested in the truth and reporting a fair story, wouldn’t you have waited for us to call you back for at least 24 hours on a non-time sensitive story? Aren’t readers better served when both sides of a story are told? After all, as you pointed out we have spoken to CastleCops before. Remember, back in 2004 when this was news?

Interestingly enough, you say this in you article as well, “At 6:30 PM EST this link was still alive. At 7:55 PM EST it now redirects to Aluria's index page: http://www.aluriasoftware.com/spyware-safe/site/www.whenu.com/”. This is the main piece of “evidence” you put forth to claim we are actively “white washing” our past with WhenU. You paint a picture of us feverishly removing links as fast as we can that very evening. Problem is, you also claim that you contacted us at 6:14pm to discuss our “white washing”. Jeez, that seems to be at least 16 minutes BEFORE, you claim we redirected the link above. Not only were you able to see the future and contact us before you claim we could have redirected the link in question, you were apparently also able to post the completed and lengthy story just 9 minutes after you claim you realized that link changed (you “realized” at 7:55PM according to your first story and posted at 8:04PM according to your rebuttal of Neil). You cannot only see the future, but you are one heck of an efficient writer. In fact, the screen shot you show "from last night's Google cache" is clearly dated as being a cached page from June 15th, 2005 - not last night. So your investigation has yielded the startling truth that we changed our website sometime in the last six months and removed some old press releases about WhenU, a company we no longer work with - Impressive.

Incidentally, when Neil posted his concerns with the statements in the article, you responded by posting on Castle Cops with the title, "Aluria's Attempt to discredit CastleCops." You don't mention Aluria did not respond to you at all (until now) and that Neil is actually respected security expert from PC Magazine questioning your facts. Instead, you said ALURIA was attempting to discredit Castle Cops - it seems you do a good job of that yourself. Clearly I question you statement to Neil, "We don’t have anything against Aluria."

I realize that Aluria’s 2004 certification of WhenU was controversial. I realize that are some very reasonable arguments for why Aluria should not have worked with them so early. And I realize it was unpopular with some zealots who believe that there is no legitimate advertising -model on the Internet (never mind Google, AOL, Yahoo and countless other ad serving companies). I also think that time has vindicated us to a large degree. As I promised at the time, today we see that no WhenU application requires an anti-spyware application to remove it because you can simply use Add and Remove Programs in Windows. They have blatantly obvious discloser screens during all installations (outside the EULA), and publicly announced in ’04 their abandonment of all active-x downloads. They are either not detected, termed ‘low risk”, or labeled as “ignore” by many major anti-spyware applications. They have been praised in a privacy audit by Richard Purcell, the ex-Microsoft chief privacy officer, and they are now certified by Truste (www.truste.org ), the leading, independent non-profit privacy and security certification organization in the U.S. Truste is supported by Microsoft, AOL and dozens of other major organizations in the security industry. In your “objective” analysis, you fail to mention any of this. You also fail to mention perhaps the most important piece of info - To this day, Aluria Security Center still DETECTS AND REMOVES WhenU applications should the user choose to do so - just like we always have. We just give users MORE information, by distinguishing WhenU’s and other rather benign ad-supported applications as “consumerware” from dangerous applications like keyloggers and remote administration malware. Instead of pointing out this easily verifiable fact, you ignore and distort by saying we “delisted” WhenU. We did not delist them – this is a patently false statement that you repeat endlessly – yawn. When you mislead, misinform and create “news” about a nearly two year old issue, then you do a disservice to anyone that unknowingly listens to you. How can you expect people to believe you tried to contact us, when this is such a blatantly one-sided hatchet job full of untruths?

Finally, I would submit this - the founders of Aluria, and indeed nearly all of the people that were working at Aluria 2 years ago when this was news are now gone. Even I am leaving Aluria at the end of this month, so if you want to blame me -great. Now EarthLink, one of the most trusted companies on the Internet runs the company after purchasing Aluria in 2005. EarthLink they recognizes the importance of protecting consumer’s online privacy and security and believes that Aluria’s technology can help people. EarthLink, now gives subscribers anti-spyware, virus protection, and firewall through an EarthLink-branded version of Aluria Security Center absolutely free. So at this point, you are not only distorting the facts, but you are really only attacking a name. The leadership at Aluria you seemed to disagree with so strongly, are long since gone, replaced by EarthLink, who is using Aluria’s technology to do good for millions of users across the net. Your attacks are misguided and are now only harming EarthLink, a company known for integrity and consumer advocacy. I started this reply with the question, “Why so Bitter?” now I would like to ask the question “Why not just let it go?”

That is my response - now I reiterate my request to post this unedited response on CastleCops as prominently as you posted the rest.

Regards,

Rick Carlson

Former Presdent/CEO Aluria Software

RobinLaudanski wrote the following post at 03-05-2006 1:16 PM:
Rick,

Thanks for responding. I'm glad that someone from Aluria had the testicular fortitude to do so. I'm also glad someone finally admitted it was a mistake to certify WhenU being spyware free.

Please rest assured your response will be posted up on CC

btw... Aren't you the Vice-President now?

Aluria's anti-spyware products have handled adware applications from WhenU in a number of different ways over the past two years. This page presents a series of tests with various versions of Spyware Eliminator and its successor, Aluria Security Center, against four standard WhenU applications. The results of these tests can be summarized thusly:

• Aluria Spyware Eliminator was detecting WhenU apps as of July 2004.
• By December 2004, Spyware Eliminator was no longer detecting WhenU apps.
• Strangely, the new Aluria Security Center 4.0 was detecting WhenU apps in February 2005, but presenting them on the "Spyware" tab, not the "Consumerware" tab.
• By June 2005, though, Aluria Security Center was presenting the WhenU apps on the "Consumerware" tab.
• With the latest March 2006 defs, WhenU apps have returned to the "Spyware" tab.