To say Kape was involved in adware would be akin to saying the Wright Bros killed millions of people - because they made planes which people used to kill people (which is simply untrue). Even the original article notes this ever so briefly so as not to show Kape positively.
Thank you for your trust until now, and given the long track record and relationship, I hope you can verify my statements as well.
Our future work will always be the same work we have been doing, so whether now or later, I'm confident we will re-earn your trust again, and hope you'll give us the opportunity.
To me this sounds like if people used Ionic or React Native to make spammy crappy apps and then people blamed those frameworks respectively. It wouldn't make any sense. It's the fault of the app developers or the platforms which distribute the app (e.g. the app store)
Am I missing something here? Did CrossRider have a storefront which actively promoted adware extensions? I'm not able to find anything rationally explaining the amount of backlash and downvoting rasengan is getting.
Also when I google CrossRider I find tons of mentions on malware tracking sites, including Microsoft's, but nothing else really. On the other hand if I would google React I do not think the majority of the results would be from anti-virus and anti-malware.
I have in my email a post from longtime senior employee Yonatan Pesses to a LinkedIn group (then named "Downloadable Software Distribution & Monetization") for people working in the pay-per-install space. It is dated Dec 5, 2014, and it reads:
"Crossrider is offering an amazing monetization solution for your MAC traffic! Very easy implementation, with high user value!
Yonatan Pesses Crossrider"
I'd say that is pretty clearly more than just an SDK.
I also gather Pesses has recently left Kape: http://archive.is/QYtxD