Microsoft's anti-malware team to have new adware rules July 1

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BoraMurdar

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Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/microsofts-anti-malware-team-to-have-new-adware-rules-july-1

When people surf the Internet on their web browsers, it's just a matter of time when they hit a page that has an online ad which then tries to install something on their computer. This week, the Microsoft Malware Protection Center team announced it will have some new criteria to define when such activity crosses over into the annoying. and sometimes malicious, adware side.

adware3fdfd_story.jpg


Pop-up online ads have to have a working close window, according to Microsoft's new adware policies.

In a blog post, Microsoft stated that online ads start to cross over into adware territory if they run programs on a user's PC and create "notifications promoting goods or services in programs other than itself." If that occurs, Microsoft states there must be a clear way to close such an ad, like a prominent "X" or a close button in, for example, pop-up ads.

Ads that show messages such as "Your PC performance is poor" must also clearly mention they are ads and not suggest they are in fact warnings generated by a PC, under the new rules. Finally, if a program is installed via an online ad on a computer, there must be a clear way to uninstall it. Also, the name of the program in the uninstall listing must exactly match the name that's shown in the ad.

The new adware policies will go into effect on July 1, in order to give online ad companies time to change their programs. After July 1, if an ad is detected by Microsoft's online security programs that is considered adware, it "will immediately stop the program and the user will be notified. The user then has the ability to restore the program if they wish."
 
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Ink

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I approve, but it's a mammoth task.

Still waiting to hear WD/MSE sucks comments. :p
 
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When MSE was first released it was the absolute best. Everyone was talking about it. I remember, testing it and it would block at least 98% of malware. I'm not sure, why on earth they went down hill and just never improved. If they plan to work on the engine they better take a good look back and look how they detected things before back in 2009. MSE is a no brain software to use and if they improved their Adware detection i would install this on more computers. After around 2011 MSE went downhill and i was getting headache after headache disinfecting my famileys computers on a weekly basis. I really hope they do improve, they have been given a bad name for quite some time now and i think it's time for a come back.
 

Ink

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Bump.

A quick note to all of developers out there. You have until 1 July to let us know if you think your software shouldn’t be detected under our new adware criteria.

A few months ago I announced some major changes to how we at the Microsoft Malware Protection Center assess adware in my blog Adware: A new approach.

As a reminder, the updated criteria defines adware as:

Programs that promote a product or service outside of their own program can interfere with your computing experience. You should have clear choice and control when installing programs that open advertisements.

The advertisements that are opened by these programs must:
  • Include an obvious way to close the ad.
  • Include the name of the program that created the ad.
The program that creates these advertisements must:
  • Provide a standard uninstall method for the program using the same name as shown in the ads it produces.
On 1 July, 2014 we will change the way our products behave when they detect adware. The programs that we still detect, and their supporting files, will be removed by default.

This means that you have about a week to let us know if you think your program shouldn’t be detected.

You can let us know through our developer contact form.

Michael Johnson
MMPC

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2014/06/23/adware-changes-one-week-to-go.aspx
 
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Guest28

Lets keep a close eye on MSE for now i'v been getting some pup and Adware detections from MSE and seems to be doing some what decent.
 
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