How a Montreal-made “social search engine” application has managed to become a widely-spread adware, while escaping consequences
Wajam Internet Technologies is a start-up founded in December 2008 by Martin-Luc Archambault (a famous entrepreneur in Quebec) and based in Montreal, Canada. The core product of the company is a social search engine application (i.e. it allows searching through the content shared by your contacts on social networks). Figure 1 illustrates an example of what Wajam displays when performing a Google search.
Figure 1. Wajam search results from a Google search (official example from Wajam)
The software itself is free to install; however, it generates revenues through the display of contextual advertising. Regarding its distribution, a browser extension was initially available from the Wajam official website until 2014 (see Figure 2), but it is now primarily distributed using the Pay-Per-Install (PPI) distribution model. According to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) of Canada, Wajam has used more than 50 different PPI providers between 2011 and 2016. This model has been criticized several times for its usage of fake Adobe Flash Player, antivirus, and many other popular software installers to deceive the user, and for the heavy presence of adware and malware in the installers provided.
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