If you think a platform is responsible for what their developers do with it, then I understand. However, Kape was never directly involved in adware other than providing SDKs that let developers create positive and negative things.
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.
Again, in the interests of historical accuracy, Crossrider did more than that. They actively provided monetization for traffic from installed apps.
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.
Did CrossRider have any honest users? From the little I can find on the Internet it seems like a toolkit for building adware with little to no honest uses.
Small correction - I don't think building adware - as long as it's not hidden, not doing clickfraud, etc. - is necessarily dishonest. It's just not the business which you want to be owning your VPN. Just as cheap used car dealership is not necessarily dishonest, but that's probably not where you want to get your banking or medical service.
I didn't do any development on CrossRider so my understanding is pretty limited here, but it looks like it was just an SDK to build cross-browser extensions which a bunch of developers used to place ads, and then CrossRider caught all the blame for it.
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 think there's a difference between providing a generic SDK and providing specific targeted SDK. E.g. if you made libstdc++, nobody is going to blame you for every C++ program using it. But if you made specific malware with specific exploit for a specific vulnerability, and people use it to take over other systems, you may share the blame - even if you yourself never used it. In the latter case, you'd be known as "malware vendor" and your trust profile would be set accordingly. I think this is close to the case for Kape. They targeted specific market with specific product. Now, it's completely their right, nothing illegal, but as well it is my right to stay away from people who are into certain markets and certain business models.
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.