Posted 11/13/08 at 03:00:00 PM by Alex Castle

While researching an antivirus article here at Maximum PC, we noticed something very curious: a Google AdWords link for “Antivirus xp 2008,” which led to the url “antivirus-world-2009.com.” (Don't go there)

Anyone who’s been paying attention during the last year or so know that "Antivirus xp 2008" is the name of one of the most widespread and obnoxious bits of malware floating around the internet. It hides itself in your system and launches a bogus antivirus program at intervals to warn you that you’ve got spyware and trojans and the sky is falling. Then, it recommends that you buy the pro version of the program, which presumably also does nothing except rip you off. The virus is frequently updated to evade malware removal tools, and is just generally a pain.

So why is Google advertising for it?

Read on to hear our take.

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Posted 07/19/08 at 12:09:47 AM by Pulkit Chandna

Google wants to further strengthen its grip on the online contextual ads business. To this end, it has announced that it is going to acquire a leading Russian contextual advertising company, Begun, for $140 million. Begun’s network encompasses 143,000 Russian websites and 40,000 publishers. Rambler Media, the majority owner of Begun, will buy the remaining stake in the company and in turn sell the entire company to Google. According to Rambler, the online search ads business in Russia is expected to grow by 50% in a year’s time. The acquisition will allow Google to expand its wings over the lucrative, Russian-speaking internet landmass.

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