Thanks everyone for the input so far. My lists are not about pointing fingers. They are to make people realize that the ugly tentacles of Adware are wider and longer and closer to you than you might have realized. I reported what I saw and everything I said should be easily verifiable by anyone within minutes. If you really can't see your listing and it bothers you, hit me up and I'll send you the url if I can remember the search it came up on.
Regarding the listing of Sponsors who have their Affiliates displayed on Zango search results. Yes it's one step removed from those who buy directly from Zango or those who promote installs. That's why I made three separate lists and explained what each list meant and bolded my reasoning rather than making one "Zango Supporters" list like
http://zangoblacklist.com has done with Mainstream and Adult combined and no clear explanation about how they derived their results.
How big a step that one step removed is depends on your viewpoint. Continue my logic enough steps and of course no business would be done at all as we all deal with people who do illegal/unethical crap or at most deal with someone who deals with someone who deals with them so each of us has our own line we draw.
Should Sponsors cancel Affiliates that buy directly on Zango and stop using it themselves as well? Ideally yes but they would all have to stop, not just some and to get them all to stop doing it voluntarily seems to be highly unlikely, though props to Will for at least making his best effort and promoting the discussion that will hopefully produce solutions.
Should Sponsors cancel Affiliates that are listed on PPC sites displayed at Zango? Of course not. The traffic to those PPC engines comes from many reputable sites, not just adware sites like Zango and as was said, the Affiliate probably doesn't even know and can't choose where the traffic originates. To the surfer however the connection seems pretty direct.
Should Sponsors attempt to monitor their Affiliates traffic sources more closely to determine a way to not have themselves associated with Adware? Of course, if there is a practical way to implement this without tying up excessive time and resources. As Jayeff said it will pay off in other areas of present and future unethical/illegal activity not just Adware.
Although I am hopeful the Adware problem will go away, I have a very pessimistic view and unfortunately it seems more likely that it will soften a bit through laws and pressure and eventually evolve to be an accepted practice, crazy as that might seem at the moment.
I can see the toolbars of the main SE's evolving to be more like Zango and them even showing all sponsored results on page one in the not too distant future, based on what the highest bidder thinks we were searching for, like Zango is doing now, with the "real" results relegated to page two or a different engine altogether, perhaps run by a couple guys out of their garage.
