Search marketing company 180 Solutions has filed a lawsuit against several of its own affiliates, after it discovered that those affiliates were using botnets to install the 180solutions solution on unsuspecting users’ computers, without their permission.

180 Solutions explains that they “provide search assistant software that delivers consumers to highly targeted websites on behalf of advertisers when they are searching the Internet for products or services.” They do this by having a consumer install the 180solutions software on their computer, which then delivers to consumers “contextually targeted websites based on their current online browsing activity.”

Now, some people would call this spyware. But only if…

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