Referrals from Spyware Search Engines

[SEFL]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but as of late I'm seeing trickles of traffic on a number of sites I work on that are generated from starware.com (yes, the infamous Starware toolbar).

Under normal circumstances, it would be legitimate traffic since the user did search for something relevant in each case, but should I (or we) be allowing this and therefore supporting Starware's efforts, based on their toolbar track record?

[ihelpyou]

What do you mean? I've never supported any toolbars out there except for Google's. There are thousands of "spyware" bars out there that send all info to the owner of the bar.

[WebSavvy]

Maybe the visitor to your site doesn't know the browser/toolbar is spyware?

There are a lot of people that may have never heard of this one, myself included.

[SEFL]

I don't support them either...in fact, I'm usually the first person to kill them if I see them on someone's machine.

But there are people with these toolbars installed that I can't reach and that are finding sites that I work on via searches on these toolbars. In other words, random people using these toolbars are finding sites that I work on.

Should I stop people from being able to find the sites as the result of a Starware search or should I allow it? This is what I'm stuck on.

[Blue]

If it is beyond your control to put certain people out of your misery I wouldn't worry about it.

You can't help them uninstall their toobars, in the first person as it were.

You could block them from your sites, but do you really want to?

The "line of ethicality" has to be drawn somewhere. You can't control what is on their computer.

Maybe you could write a detection script so that when users of that toolbar come to your site they are directed to a page warning them off of the toobar?

[SEFL]

Actually, that's what I was contemplating, Blue (a script to detect/warn about baddie toolbars). Deb confirmed what I long suspected, and I just need to get my hands on an old crappy machine that I can screw up/with.

That'll have to be one of the things I do on my holidays next week.

[polarmate]

I've been seeing referrals from http://my.starware.com/dp/search - which I assumed was another of "those zillion new search engines."
This (http://www.google.com/search?q=starware&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS211US212) confirms otherwise. Ugh.

[Blue]

Mmmmmmm ..... Holidays!!! :)

[g1smd]

I would have the page insert an extra information box warning the user they have malware on their PC.. and explicitly naming the software involved. I would NOT provide any links to other sites in that box, as that in itself may then look like a scam. I would NOT use javascript for this, just an include, or an iframe.

[SEFL]

g1smd: I've got a much better idea than that. ;)