Ezula Allegedly Unethical Firms Business

Ezula.com makes a plugin for Microsoft Internet Explorer that replaces text within web pages with links to advertisers' sites. Many webmasters have objected to links specifically featuring their competitors; others have more general objections based on the perceived integrity of their work after it has been infiltrated by links which they have not reviewed, or have reviewed and disapproved.

• Associate Programs Newsletter: How to stop Scumware from defacing your website - Explains how Top Text and similar programs can negatively affect income streams, particularly for sites that use affiliate programs.
  
• WebHostingTalk Forums: KaZaa is Hijacking Traffic! - Webmasters and surfers, mostly disapproving of the embedded advertising links.
  
• ThiefWare.com - Information and resources primarily for webmasters who wish to fight unethical contextual advertising.
  
• Whirly Wiry Web: Fighting Ezula - Discussion of web design to detect and defeat contextual advertising, including recognizing the HotText and TopText plugins.
  
• Foistware - Information to help users and webmasters identify when Top Text is installed.
  
• c|net Tech News: Peer-to-peer exchanges court advertisers - Article describing the financial arrangements, briefly mentioning the controversy.
  
• COTSE: You may have heard of Microsoft Smart Tags, but have you seen Ezula and Surf+? - A webmaster's editorial accusing TopText and Intelsoft International's Surf+ of theft, false advertising, and deceptive self-promotion.
  
• TrafficG Yellow and Green Link Killer - Provides script to disable Top Text and Surf+. Documents source code alterations made by these programs.
  
• Search Engine Watch: Forget Smart Tags; TopText Is Doing What You Feared - Editorial decrying stealth download tactics, copyright and other legal violations.
  
• geek/talk Forums at GeekVillage - Discussion about the eZula TopText defacement in the context of copyright violation.
  
• Slashdot: Don't Eat the Yellow Links - Web owners upset by changed content; describes an "opt-out" procedure.
  
• Salon.com: The parasite economy - Examines the spread of both "spyware" and programs that add commercial links to websites. KaZaa's distribution of eZula is heavily featured.
  
• StopScum - Resources, news and forums for the fight against contextual advertising.
  
• Mystery links: New Web advertising tool gets results, draws criticism - San Francisco Chronicle: mentions concerns about the ethics of covert advertising, and commercial firms outraged by links to competitors' sites.
  
• Ethics in Advertising - Editorial asking "How far should advertising go?" Examines eZula's browser plug in as a specific example of unethical advertising.
  
• c|net Tech News: Chorus of Gator critics grows - Article on Interactive Advertising Bureau's possible regulatory complaint over Gator's ad insertion. Also discusses Top Text and the effort against it.
  
• You got the yellow linking Virus? - Gives information on how to remove/unistall TopText, and links to other more detailed resources.
  
• Protect Your Web Site from Unwanted Linking - Explains how the eZula system works and provides resources that allow users to remove it and to help web site owners protect their sites from unwanted advertising insertion.
  
• eZula and Surf+ Script Killer - Provides a script killer for the eZula software. Also works on Surf+.
  
• PetitionOnline: eZula - Petition protesting insertion of advertising links on web pages.
  
• Applelinks: Another New Technology to Deep-Six - Editorial suggesting "loud, pointed, organized protests" against this attempt to "take over your web pages."
  
• San Diego Daily Transcript: 'Poachware' Routes Computer Users To Alternate Web Sites - Article about anti-competitive involuntary hyperlinks being placed by Top Text (aka ContextPro).
  
• PCWorld: Latest Online Ad Gimmick: Hyperlinks - "Advertisers try aggressive (and annoying) hyperlink technology to make the Web pay."
  
  

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