Crack open the bubbly because it’s official...today we began rolling out the second set of major enhancements to our search assistant applications. Specifically, today’s release features what we call the “Closed Loop System” (CLS), a built-in mechanism that makes it much easier for consumers to report unapproved installations of our software. As if that’s not big enough news, we also announced today that we will end distribution of the 180search Assistant by the end of the year and will replace it with our new Seekmo Search Assistant.
So what exactly is the CLS? Basically, it’s technology that gives us the ability, using customer feedback and other tools, to quickly track and shut down compromised distribution channels of our search assistant products. In the cases where a compromised channel is found, we’ll re-message each affected user and either remove the software or, in the cases where a user wants to continue using our programs, we’ll require them to opt-in.
As you may remember, we launched our Safe and Secure Search (S3) technology in September, which is included in all of our products and helps prevent the suppression or manipulation of the user consent experience prior to installation. We created the CLS as further protection (“defense in depth”) against unauthorized installation attempts.
Where you can check out the new release:
Examples of what it looks like in the wild:
Just so there’s no confusion, here’s a quick summary of what our announcements today mean in terms of a timeline:
December 6, 2005
• All new publishing partners will distribute only the S3/CLS-enabled versions of the Seekmo and Zango search assistants
• All new publishing partners who would have distributed the 180search Assistant will instead distribute Seekmo
• Process begins to convert existing publishing partners from prior technology to S3/CLS-enabled technology; process will be completed by end of the year
January 1, 2006
• 180search Assistant no longer distributed
• All new installations of the Seekmo and Zango search assistants are S3/CLS enabled
• All publishing partners are distributing S3/CLS-enabled search assistants
• No Payment will be made to publishing partners who distribute previous versions of our search assistant software
Happy trails, 180search Assistant
Cue the Roy Rogers music…
The retirement of the 180search Assistant and the introduction of the Seekmo Search Assistant represent another step to ensure that all of our customers have been properly notified and that they have provided clear consent.
Take a look . . . kick the tires . . . let us know what you think.
www.seekmo.com