Misrepresentation of eAcceleration Stop-Sign Products

[David Nason]

Hi Jason,

As the Chief Technology Officer for eAcceleration
Corp., the producer of Stop-Sign Computer Protection
Service anti-virus and PC security products, I am writing
to this forum to provide you with the information
necessary to correct Microsoft's serious errors in its
disparagement of eAcceleration products as Adware and
Spyware through the AntiSpyware beta.

Our software, paid for by our customers or used in
free trial form, performs as advertised and in some cases
more effectively than our competition in the anti-virus
industry. Our customers report their satisfaction in our
virus detection and cure rates. Third party testing
facilites, including PestPatrol and SpywareWarrior, have
confirmed the quality of our product through their
independent studies. In fact, just prior to Microsoft's
acquisition of Giant AntiSpyware, they made the same
determination.

You have used our trademarked name, eAcceleration, as
an object to be classified as Spyware, including
implications that eAcceleration secretly gathers our
users' personal information; an implication that is
disparaging and untrue.

Your AntiSpyware product incorrectly identifies
components of eAcceleration products as "spyware"
and "adware" and removes or flags them for removal from
the user's computer. Paying subscribers of our Stop-Sign
products have had components of eAcceleration applications
they paid for removed, often incorrectly and leaving
portions running in broken fashion.

Simply put, your characterizations and representations
of our software and of eAcceleration Corp. are misleading
and untrue, and your products' behavior may be described
as anti-competitive, and therefore, an anti-trust
violation.

I hope to resolve this in a professional and amicable
manner. I am providing this detailed information to
permit you to remove all references to eAcceleration Corp.
and any of its products and trademarks from your
products. eAcceleration Corp. of course reserves all
rights and remedies, and will take all appropriate action
to protect and enforce its legal rights.

You may contact me by mail to the address below, or by
email to (e-mail address removed).

I invite you to look at our current download process
and user interchange at http://www.stopsign.com - click on
any "Free Scan" button to review the complete user
experience.

I look forward to your response.


Sincerely,

David Nason
CTO and COO
eAcceleration Corp
(e-mail address removed)

1050 NE Hostmark St.
Suite 100B
Poulsbo, WA 98370

 

[Adam Piggott]

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David Nason wrote:
| Hi Jason,
|
| As the Chief Technology Officer for eAcceleration
| Corp., the producer of Stop-Sign Computer Protection
| Service anti-virus and PC security products, I am writing
| to this forum to provide you with the information
| necessary to correct Microsoft's serious errors in its
| disparagement of eAcceleration products as Adware and
| Spyware through the AntiSpyware beta.

<snip>

I will avoid any personal or professional comments regarding what is
considered spyware, as in this context they would be largely irrelevant.

You may be able to lodge your dispute at the following web site:

http://www.spynet.com/vendors.aspx

....which although still has GIANT branding, does seem to have been somewhat
converted to Microsoft.

If you would like to ensure your requests/comments are heard may I suggest
using some sort of guaranteed mail to Microsoft's registered company
address. As far as I understand,
microsoft.private.security.spyware.appcompat is not officially "watched" by
Microsoft and may not be the best place to air your comments.

Regards,


Adam Piggott.
Proprietor,
Proactive Services (Computing)

- --
Please replace dot invalid with dot uk to email me.
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[Eric L. Howes]

Mr. Nason:

Our software, paid for by our customers or used in
free trial form, performs as advertised and in some cases
more effectively than our competition in the anti-virus
industry. Our customers report their satisfaction in our
virus detection and cure rates. Third party testing
facilites, including PestPatrol and SpywareWarrior, have
confirmed the quality of our product through their
independent studies. In fact, just prior to Microsoft's
acquisition of Giant AntiSpyware, they made the same
determination.

Please don't mischaracterize what was reported by Spyware Warrior. We never
described your product as "quality." What we essentially reported was that
we could no longer find sufficient justification to continue listing
eAcceleration's Stop-Sign product on the Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware page.

For more information see:

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm#ss_note

What is reported on the page is as follows:

------------

------------
Note on eAcceleration Stop-Sign: eAcceleration's Stop-Sign anti-malware
scanner was listed on this page primarily because of the company's history
of employing deceptive advertising and drive-by-downloads. The company was
also known for removing and/or disabling competing apps. These objectionable
business practices were employed primarily during the years 2002-2003.

Sometime during 2004 the company underwent reorganization. Not only have the
worst of the company's download and installation practices been halted, but
the company has completely overhauled its stub installer application, giving
users much more control over the software modules to be installed on their
systems.

While testing indicates that the "threat scanner" is still slow and has
occasional problems with false positives -- in large part because of the use
of heuristics, which cannot be turned off by the user -- we can no longer
classify this application as "rogue/suspect." Nonetheless, this anti-malware
application -- at least in its current state -- cannot be recommended, given
the many excellent competing anti-virus, anti-trojan, and anti-spyware
applications that are available (some for free).
------------[end quote]------------

Regards,

Eric L. Howes

 

[Guest]

Hi. Am new here so please ,Dont want to step on any toes.
Just a few questions on stop sign. I came home one day
and Hubby and friend were on computer, after they
finished I got on, am on alot, this was when I first got
computer have had maybe 2 yrs., amyways, noticed stop
sign in right hand corner, open it up, find out it is
spyware protection, antivirus protector, what have you,
played with it some here and there, every time i turn on
computer i open stop sign, people who I email start
asking me questions about if I have virus protector, said
they got virus and adaware and such and cant figure where
they got it from, all these people had computers for few
years before i got mine, they all came to conclusion i
was infecting them and stop emailing me, I figure heck
with them, go about my fun and all and more people
complain, I then go to different groups and go to
internet to check out this stop sign, all sites say get
rid of it, spyware, uninstall it, so i go to uninstall
and it took 45 minutes to do because it keeps comming on
asking me ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO UNINSTALL??????? O

 

[Guest]

sORRY HIT THE WRONG BUTTON... after it kept me hitting
the yes uninstall button it finally gave up and
uninstalled. The web page i went to said it would fight
me on the uninstall. While it was installed I had pop up
issues like crazy, and my emails i sent to people were
supposenly according to them infected with such. after
the uninstall, no pop ups, people liked me again. Like I
said earlier I am fairly new to computers and have lots
to learn, just need someone to explain this to Me
please. thanks

 

[Shally]

Hi, I am an eAcceleration stop-sign user, I used to think a few years ago that Stop-Sign was spyware, but it really isnt. So far it's one of the best spyware/virus remover's i've come accross, and i've come accross many. I first found the software and then stumbled opon the eA game The 4th Coming, MMORPG (massivly multiplaying online role playing game) graphics are 2.5D lol but still an excellent game. Honestly I think the stop-sign product has vastly improved in recent years, and to uninstall it is quite easy, if your a paying customer (Which I am) you can talk to eA support, they will give you a link for the complete uninstaller, or you can just as easily delete it the old fasioned way. I know one thing for sure though, I wouldn't delete this software for the world.
There are over 16 products in the package, not including the hudreds of oodlz games available (T4C is one) and it's cheap as chips, thank god

**Edit:
Alot of the times people believe stop-sign is spyware because they search for those dumb spyware that actaully call themselves 'spyware' and they come up with the eA files concerning information on the spyware, this info helps the software delete them, if deleted this then messes up the program and you have to reinstall it to fix it