Official Statement from the Anti Spyware Federation - 9 April 2001.

 We regret to inform you that our software will not be available for the following reasons:

1. A Hate Campaign has been in force against us since day 1.

2. If we posted a message on a news group informing people of what was happening with our site (we posted such a message on on particular newsgroups a few days ago) we got accused of spamming. However the number of messages we have posted amount to just TWO. Other people have been spamming newsgroups and pretending it was us. We have nothing to do with these individuals and we think they are just scum, the lowest of the low. Indeed on that same newsgroups there was a post about another Anti Spyware Web site going off-line and it was not accused of being Spam. More evidence of the hate campaign against us.

3. The hate campaign has not been confined to false accusations of spamming. Indeed our email inbox is full of hate emails. A sample of which follows:

 "Your Site is of little Value",
 "Do you honestly believe anyone will buy your product?",
 "go F**K yourselves Spammers!",
 "F**K off back to your university studies",
 "You are just criminals and are going to steal everyone's money",

 We set up the web site while our software was in development to educate the public on spyware. In the few months our site was online we received over ten thousand hits. Hopefully some of those ten thousand people know a little more about spyware.

 In our opinion Spyware detection and removal has become a closed shop. Run by a few people for their own gains. What these gains are we have no idea nor do we care anymore. After months of fending off false accusations of spam, getting our web site shut down twice and our email address was nearly shut down (thankfully we managed to persuade them not to) we have come to the end of our tethers. The software has been sold to an interested party. Our T1 line has been leased out to another company. Most of the servers have been sold off. And our mirror sites in Japan and Australia have been closed as well.

 Its a real pity that you the general public never got to try out the software, but the hate campaign got too much.

 The accusations made by individuals that we are criminals are being taken very seriously and we intend to take all available steps to clear our name.
 

 To the few people that sent us compliments, we thank you.

--
The now defunct Anti Spyware Federation.

9 April 2001.

Our Message Board (still online) http://pub20.ezboard.com/bantispywarefederation