Those programs that hammer you with ads and slow down your PC are backed by some of America’s largest companies.

Dan Tynan and Tom Spring
From the November 2005 issue of PC World magazine
Allison Smith will never forget the week before Memorial Day 2005.
Searching the Internet looking for some free clip art, Smith found a site that looked perfect. But before she could download as much as an icon, her PC was infested with adware. “All of a sudden I was besieged with pop-up ads,” says Smith, a CPA who runs an accounting firm in Conway, Arkansas.many Internet Explorer windows [open] that they completely stalled my computer.”
Many of the ads Smith saw on her desktop bore a calling card from their creator: an adware program called Aurora, made by New York-based Direct Revenue.

Using another computer, Smith googled “Aurora” to learn more. She ineffectively tried using anti-spyware programs to remove it, tried killing the adware using Task Manager, and eventually hired a computer technician, who spent three days (at $50 an hour) trying to fix the problem. Each time he removed the software, she says, it would automatically reinstall itself under a different name.