StopBadware now a non-profit organization

by Steve Ragan - Jan 26 2010, 16:10

Thanks to funding from Google, PayPal, and Mozilla, StopBadware is now a fully fledged non-profit organization. Despite the status change, the newly minted incorporation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, still plans to protect Internet users in the years to come, just as it has done in the past.

StopBadware started four years ago as an anti-Malware initiative running out of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. StopBadware works with its network of organizations and individual volunteers to collect and analyze data, while building community momentum towards fighting malicious software (given the title “badware”), and ultimately to advocate for change.

StopBadware has had previous success in its goal of changing attitudes and behaviors. Its “badware alerts,” which highlight applications that violate established badware guidelines, have led major corporations such as AOL, Real Networks, and Sears to make changes to their software to protect customer choice.

The organization's collaboration with Google, resulting in warnings to users about websites that can install Malware, and assistance with the remediation and prevention of such compromised sites, has increased awareness of the role individual site owners can play in reducing the spread of Malware.

“There is still much to do,” commented StopBadware’s executive director Maxim Weinstein in a statement. “Badware remains a growing problem, but in the past few years, there’s also been a growing sense that this is a problem we -- the Internet community -- can and should work together to address.”

In addition to Weinstein’s role within StopBadWare, one of the project’s leaders, professor John Palfrey, will serve on the new non-profit’s board of directors, along with Michael Barrett (PayPal), Vint Cerf (Google), Esther Dyson, Mike Shaver (Mozilla), and Ari Schwartz (Center for Democracy & Technology).

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