Advertising on the internet was once limited to annoying popups or excessively-animated banners, but these days even software installers can be packed with mostly unwanted extras. In light of this shift in adware distribution, Microsoft has revised how its anti-malware measures classify such software and has given developers until July 1 to get their houses in order.
A post on Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center explains how programs containing advertising must conduct themselves, lest they be picked up by the likes of the company’s Security Essentials software.
Here are the major points software must follow:
- Ads shown by the software must be able to be closed
- Ads must display the name of the program that created them
- The program must have a way of being uninstalled
Microsoft is also planning to immediately close programs its software classifies as adware. Currently, users are just warned about their presence and asked what action they’d like to take.
Unfortunately, I doubt it’ll change how the more nefarious companies do business — keeping in Microsoft’s good books is not high on their agendas.
Adware: A new approach [Microsoft Malware Protection Center]
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