zookaware

Hello,

I'm Carl Haugen and I own ZookaWare. We've submitted our software for whitelisting, and while Avast the company who owns AVG, whitelisted us today, AVG has not yet and is still detecting our software for the past week.

While I respect AVG, they recently started using a third party service to review software and add them to AVG's antivirus database, which is the only reason why AVG is detecting our software. This company is called Appesteem and their business model is to get legitimate companies sofware detected by antivirus in order to charge them a fee to get their software removed from the antivirus companies database.

After Appesteem gets your software detected by antivirus companies, they try to sell companies a "premium services" package comprised of a $2500 setup fee, $1,000/mo plus $300/hr for consulting fees to get antivirus companies to stop detecting your software, after they are the ones who got you detected to begin with.
http://cdn.appesteem.com/public-documents/certification-fee-schedule.pdf

The owner of Appesteem admitted all his "rules" posted on his site are his personal opinion and not laws or regulations of any type. In fact, I found 2 reviews posted on Google reviews for his Appesteem company that were fake, so he doesn't mind violating real laws to market his own company.

Appesteem doesn't even have a company Facebook or Twitter page, which doesn't add to their credibility.

Appesteem's attack upon our company was solely due to us using the word "registry error" in our software. Two months ago, CCleaner, owned by Avast the company that owns AVG, also used "registry error", however they are supporting Appesteem by adding software on his hitlist to antivirus companies databases, so CCleaner did not get on Appesteem's hitlist like we did.

We removed the word "registry error" from our software and Appesteem confirmed we not only meet their requirements but we are a model of our industry and they are going to use our software as the industry standard for what other companies should follow. But still AVG detects our software as they told us today that Appesteem still has us on their list and Appesteem refuses all requests to contact any antivirus company as thats only included in their "premium services" package. We don't pay extortions, so will not pay Appesteem.

My hope is that AVG stops using this mafia style organization as its only hurting their image and brand, like in this example.

You can read my Appesteem review (https://www.scambook.com/report/view/365871/Appesteem-Complaint-365871-for-$15,000.00) here

If you have any questions about ZookaWare please contact the ZookaWare support center (https://zookaware.com/support.php)

Thanks,

Carl Haugen