FirstLook.com pop-up application; installed via SP?

From: blink (blink@blink.com)
Date: 08/31/02 

From: blink <blink@blink.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 09:57:41 -0700

Quite a number of people are getting a mysterious application installed
by a company called FirstLook.com without their foreknowledge or
permission. It is getting installed as a application, and is listed in
the control panel Add/Remove Programs section as "FirstLook Portal".
Each day when an infected machine is started, IE opens and displays
their ad. People have reported difficulty in uninstalling it; other
programs getting disabled; and data being transmitted over broadband
connections when it appears.

There is a thread here discussing the FirstLook.com invasion:
http://www.computing.net/networking/wwwboard/forum/8981.html

No one has been able to figure out where it comes from; but one likely
candidate seems to be that it's in one of the recent Microsoft service
packs. I sure didn't install anything other than the urgent SP's from
Windows update, including Win2K sp3, the IE update that was available
last week, and the Media Player one. I've had this for about a week, and
have not installed anything since it appeared. I use Norton AntiVirus on
all email and it does a weekly scan of the system.

I've written to FirstLook.com and all they say is "The Firstlook Service
was delivered to your computer when you downloaded any number of
popular, free software applications via the internet". I don't think
so.

I believe that the application that FirstLook.com is installing without
permission represents a new low in intrusive behavior by a firm. And it
really worries me that this sort of rubbish is going to become part of
our lives. Even if the FirstLook Portal is not installed by one of the
Microsoft service packs, at the very least Microsoft should contact
these idiots, determine the mode of distribution, and either patch the
exposure or in some other way find a way to put the brakes on it.

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