Remember Superfish? It was an advertising agency based in California. It became best known for its role in the Lenovo fiasco. Today, if you visit the “company’s” official page, you’ll see an announcement stating that it is “closing business.”
The company, founded in 2006, developed an image recognition and product matching algorithm that used programs like WindowShopper to serve ads to computers.
The company's products were often distributed as third-party offers and included in software installers. This led to numerous complaints from users who later discovered that Superfish had installed various add-ons on their browsers (Internet Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox).
Content producers and Internet companies were negatively affected, as advertisements were automatically added to their websites, which not only reduced the administrators' income, but also brought a very bad reputation to the website.
A study by Google concluded that SF was one of two major advertising companies that used injecting methods to display their ads.
Things started to go wrong when it became known that some Lenovo computers came with Superfish pre-installed.
What made this particularly problematic was the root certificate that Superfish added to Lenovo computers, making all secure connections from that computer (via HTTPS) vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
Last month, Superfish announced it would shift its focus, but that it would continue to offer visual search technology to its customers.
The company's website today gives a very different message, stating that the company is ceasing its activities.
At the same time, however, a new company has appeared. The website Just Visual has appeared out of nowhere, and it is even trying to hide its tracks, since it appears to be protected by a registration proxy, which means you can't see who registered it.
But CrunchBase reveals a very interesting piece of information about JustVisual. The website's administrator and chief of product, Kevin Akira Lee, was the CEO of Superfish!
The “new company” currently has two new products on its website. The first is a visual search and image recognition service with its API, and the second is the “LikeThat Apps” app for Android and iOS. The app identifies and matches style, decor, and more.
So while Superfish seems to have disappeared, JustVisual has come to provide similar services. However, after the discovery of the new name, we may soon notice new changes.
