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Comment by sauere | Hacker News Reader

How much $ does one make with this kind of crapware-bundling? Like how much would i get for 1000 toolbar installs?

Bundleware... Pay Per Install (PPI) in industry terms... can make you a lot of money. I regularly get offers of up to $2 per install to bundle things with PortableApps.com. I could make millions in just a few months even at more industry standard payment levels. It would kill the project and hurt my reputation, of course. But it can be tempting when you run a free open source project and you're falling behind on your rent.

> But it can be tempting when you run a free open source project and you're falling behind on your rent.

Which isn't the case for Oracle AFAIK... ;-)

Google likely pays Oracle quite a bit for the default bundleware installations of Chrome. It's a way for Oracle to profit off the userbase installing Java for free and for Google to increase Chrome's share. Fun fact, Google pays Adobe a lot of money to bundle default installations of Chrome with Flash downloads as well.

That's weird... doesn't Chrome come with a custom build of Flash already? So if you download flash, you download Chrome, which in turn downloads flash?

Yes and No. Chrome comes with its own version of Flash installed. So, when you try to download Flash for your copy of Firefox, it automatically downloads and installs Chrome (with its own copy of Flash) unless you uncheck the box in the middle of the download page. Adobe doesn't care, they get paid by Google. And Google pays to increase Chrome's market share.

Thanks for not accepting the offers!

You're welcome :)

Unfortunately, I imagine it'd be a fair bit of money. Many toolbars track every site you visit, how long you're there, what you type on the site (including personally identifying information), and a host of other Orwellian things.

I can't imagine anyone feels good about trying to trick their users into installing this crap. If the money wasn't good, only completely amoral psychopaths would do it. As it stands, the financial incentives bring it to the point where greedy asshats are also willing to get in on the action.

Define "a fair bit of money", please.

It's telling that Facebook, a company that's not known for treating their users as anything other than a commodity to be packaged and sold, would never stoop to something like this.

In an era where a photo sharing site sells for over a billion dollars, Oracle must be raking in hundreds of millions on this deal for it to be worth the damage to their Java brand.

facebook is probably able to get data through other means. Their like button javascript on half of the internet for example.

Do any of these "other means" involve installing shady software on people's computers?

They've had many opportunities to do stuff like that with their iOS and Android apps but have never dared.

My point is they wouldnt need to install shady software on your machine. They're able to track you with their like button.

I find it amazing that people seemingly don't know that Facebook tracks you across the web through those embedded Like buttons, and more amazing that many who do know don't seem to care.

There's a reason I have the equivalent of "127.0.0.1 facebook.com" in my /etc/hosts file.

Facebook doesn't do it because they don't need to do it, at least right now. Wait until they're on the ropes, fighting for their corporate life in one way or another, then see what they do.

I think the point is not for the user to make money, but the people bundling the toolbar.

I think ask.com pays whoever bundles their toolbar so it's basically advertising money, at least it seems like that for me.

Yes, I'm fairly certain that's what the parent meant. If he was running a company doing the bundling, how much would he get paid if his bundle installed the toolbar 1000 times, now how much would he as an end user get if he installed it 1000 times on his own machines.

Aha! that makes more sense. I read that as if the user would get money for using ask.com toolbar.

But yeah, thanks to both of you.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure if ask.com is willing to bundle their toolbar with any product. Maybe they select only high-volume products?

That's what he is asking: How much money Oracle gets per install?

Given how much money there is in malware, the low risk of getting caught, and the zero risk of legal repercussions, how would you think the incentives looks like? Lenovo got caught and the legal actions so far been almost non-existent.

If this action enable someone to get a raise or a promotion, the final $ amount doesn't need to be very high. just enough to be deemed a financial successful project.

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