The Starware toolbar and adware product was the flagship brand for MIVA Direct and made a good amount of money, but required a large continuous investment in marketing. Starware unfortunately had a damaged reputation (true or not) as being a virus and was flagged by every reputable antivirus company, in fact the name itself sounds very similar to the industry language related to Malware, Adware and Spyware.

No matter how much money was spent on the product and distribution, there was very little retention and all of the leading Antivirus software flagged it as undesirable due to the fact that it showed AdWare. Now this really isn’t that big of a deal under MS Windows XP as many machines have questionable if any antivirus software in place. The Starware brand had contextual advertising (AdWare) and even if the user was provided with full disclosure, Adware products are labeled as undesirable in the MS Antivirus database (regardless of user consent or product disclosure!) Considering that MS VISTA ships with MS Defender standard, this is now becoming a major problem for any application trying to be successful monetizing or incorporating any form of AdWare.

To borrow another analogy, the train tracks were ending for Starware and any contextual advertising (Adware) product. Not everyone internal to MIVA agreed with my vision of the “Death of Adware”, but in hindsight all parties would agree that I was right. Companies who didn’t understand this are beginning to pay the price today as MS VISTA adoption rates continue to grow.

The elimination and consolidation of competitors that did not head these warnings is evidence that the decision to clean up our toolbar products and build a new brand (ALOT) was critical to the success of MIVA.

Whether or not Starware deserved its reputation, the perception and reputation are reality (just do a Google search for Starware to measure the reputation). Without a strong motivational leader, who was able to discuss these issues with the larger critics and define a plan to erase and ultimately change perceptions, the company would not have been prepared for future challenges. This is where I came in and saved the MIVA toolbar business.