It Seems To Me

Thoughts and Rants on Technology, Business and Politics

Subscription based services are generally considered to be good business models. Once you have a customer hooked on a subscription it is much easier (and cheaper) to retain them than to acquire new subscribers. It amazes me, then, when I discover subscription based services that have no mechanism to notify me that my subscription is about to expire and no easy method to renew my subscription.

I used to have this problem with Audible.com. At one time I was subscribed to at least a half-dozen NPR shows from Audible with various expiration dates. My subscriptions would frequently expire and I would only discover it after a few days (or weeks) when it occurred to me that I was missing some regular content that I had come to expect. I would faithfully return to their web site to renew but only after being frustrated and finding that I had inevitably missed an episode or two. Thankfully, Audible has upgraded their systems to provide renewal notices.

This week I encountered the same negligence in subscriber retention with Spy Sweeper software. I purchased Spy Sweeper more than a year ago and have stayed current with the latest spyware definitions and scanning engine. As a result, the latest version 3.5 of the scanning engine is already installed on my system.

Recently I noticed that Spy Sweeper was prompting me every day that new spyware definitions were available. When I told it to update, nothing would happen. After a few weeks of this unusual behaviour I took a closer look and discovered that my subscription had expired.

It is a little disturbing to me that there was not a more visible notification that my subscription, and thus my protection from the latest nasties in spyware, had expired.

Nevertheless, upon my discovery, I went to their web site to upgrade. I completed my purchase only to discover further that there is no way to update my current subscription on the installed software. The only way to apply my subscription renewal was to reinstall the software and enter my new key code. This is ridiculous! — not to mention cumbersome. I happen to be travelling a lot these days and only have access to a dial-up connection. In order to extend my subscription I have to download the software again over a slow connection and reinstall.

I wrote to the help desk at Webroot asking if it was true that my only option was to reinstall the software. I also suggested that they add an item to their development roadmap: an interface that makes it easier for the end user to extend their subscription without reinstalling the software.

They responded to my inquiry with the following canned reply, serving only to exacerbate my disappointment in the company:

Hello,

We are sorry that you are encountering difficulty with our software. You will need to uninstall your any versions of Spy Sweeper and upgrade to the newest version of our software.

To uninstall, close spysweeper by right clicking on the spy sweeper icon in your system tray (by the time clock) and click on close, select the start button, select control panel, select add/remove programs, locate Spy Sweeper and, select the change/remove button, once the uninstall finishes please reboot your computer.

We have sent you an email containing your key code and a link to download the software. During your download please disable all firewall software/web accelerators/download managers because this may interfere with the integrity of the downloaded file.

Save the file to your desktop and once the download is complete open that install file by double clicking on the saved file on your desktop named sspsetup1_.exe

If you are having problems locating the file after downloading, click start, search, for files or folders, on the left choose "all files and folders", search for "sspsetup" This will locate the file for you. Double click on the file and follow the directions to install the software.

If you continue to have any difficulty with our product please re-open this ticket or call us.

Sincerely,

The Webroot Team

Spy Sweeper received editor's choice on PC magazine. I guess the PCMag Labs never ran the software long enough to let the subscription expire.