What circumstances could bring pornography, Air France, Apple Computers, Vonage, Netflix, and J.P. Morgan Chase together? The installation of adware on your computer. As I've previously posted, there's definitely a distinction between adware and full-blown spyware, but in the case of some adware, when you click on a URL that some adware advertiser is targeting (either as a competitor or an upsell), the adware will often generate an ad that obscures or obstructs your view of the site you originally intended to go to.

Ben Edelman documents this behavior in articles entitled Advertisers Supporting eXact Advertising" and Documentation of Gator Advertisements and Targeting. Mr. Edelman specifically notes that in the case of eXact, a file is downloaded to your computer which has detection rules for URLs, and matches them with the "appropriate advertiser". If you read The Motley Fool, that URL is paired with an ad served up from a URL that starts at Real Media entitled "BullsEye Network Offer".

In itself, this would be only a minor annoyance, were it not for the theft of bandwidth and computing cycles, however, Mr. Edelman had some very interesting observations as to the breakdown of advertisers. Out of 818 ads, approximately 281 ads (just over 34%) served up were for adult-oriented (pornographic, gambling and sexual health) advertisers. The consequences of ads of this sort showing up on a PC used by the entire family are not difficult to imagine.

Mr. Edelman's pages provide a valuable service, in telling us which advertisers think so little of us, their ultimate customers, that they would support adware to get their message across. Conversely, some of the good guys, such as Verizon and Wells Fargo, who eschew adware are identified.

Other than the damage adware is doing to people's computers, the amount of money involved is causing adware "providers" to file lawsuits. CloudEight, a maker of computer wallpaper and stationery, has been threatened with legal action by Hotbar, and iDownload's attorneys have been firing off threatening letters.

I would hope that some Attorneys General might bring some scrutiny on the adware industry, however, the amounts of money that are undoubtedly at work here can buy an awful lot of lobbying....