In its infinite wisdom, Microsoft has awarded MVP status to a software developer who pushed adware through his Messenger Plus program. It doesn?t install it without asking, but the adware he is pushing is Lop.
Lop is a group of spyware and hijacker programs that set your Internet Explorer start page and search features to use the site lop.com (?Live Online Portal?) or one of its clone sites.
Lop.com is a web site owned by C2 Media. It is mainly a pay-per-click search portal where other web sites pay for each click-through to their site via lop. Lop.com created a program which is labeled variously as an mp3 search program, a porn search program, or some other such thing. The installer turns the user?s web browser into a device with a seemingly endless supply of links to lop.com.
The real funny part of this story is that Microsoft?s own program detects Messenger Plus via Virustotal, screenshot on PG?s site. Way to cheapen the award that meant so much to so many Microsoft, your an MVP with us as well.