What we discovered about InstallMonetizer

It's unclear exactly how much of a right we as investors have to tell the companies we fund what to do. But on the other hand we don't like the idea that someone we funded might be doing something illicit, so we felt like we should at least investigate the claims and if there was a problem, try to convince IM to fix it.

Here's a list of things people said about IM or similar products, and what we discovered about each:

1. They make "drive-by installers." A drive-by installer installs software without the user's knowledge. This accusation is false. Other companies in this business do such things, but IM doesn't. Every IM install screen has a decline as well as an accept button, and if the user declines, no software is installed.

2. The apps that get installed are "crapware." This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things.

3. IM "monitors and uploads user’s ongoing usage activity of the bundled crapware." This fact is disclosed in the IM EULA (which admittedly probably no one reads), but more importantly isn't used for any money-making purpose. The usage info is (a) collected only for the first 30 minutes and (b) is only used to prove to the advertiser that the install is by a human and not a bot.

4. "This surprisingly includes not only IP but the globally unique MAC addresses." This information also isn't used for marketing purposes, only if advertisers request it to clear up discrepancies in dowload figures. We asked IM to switch to uploading hashes of the IP and MAC address instead, and they are going to start doing that.

5. Comments on HN mentioned that a lot of companies in this business wrap OSS in violation of the license terms. When we asked IM, they scanned their publishers and found that 6% of them were doing this. Those publishers have been banned from using IM, and all future publishers will be thoroughly screened for ownership of their software.

6. Comments on HN also pointed out that some apps installed by this type of installer are excessively hard to uninstall-- e.g. because when you try to uninstall them, they re-install themselves. This again is something that while common practice in this industry, IM won't do. They ban advertisers who do such things.

Glad to see they are the kind of people we can safely work with.

This raises a question though: does this company make something that users want? When a user installs a specific program is he/she looking to install other software as well? Is the argument that InstallMonetizer bundles useful software that it feels will enhance the user's life in some way? (going off the adage that the consumer does not really know what they want i.e. they'd just ask for a faster horse)