"People who own 7Search.com have ties to browseraccelerator.com, a site that pushes a browser toolbar that "helps users improve their online experience dramatically by displaying within a browser everything an informed consumer needs to know about the web site being visited. Eric Howes, director of malware research at security provider Sunbelt Software, installed the software on a virtual machine and quickly noticed the software was offering search results that mixed sponsored links from unsponsored links. "What they're trying to do is sneak adversing past the user without the user recognizing the search results ... are sponsored, paid-for results," he said. He also said the software by no means represented a high risk because it didn't appear to track individual users or forcibly install itself. Still, he said: "We would probably target it because of the overwhelming presence of advertising." Indeed, two Sunbelt products, Viper and CounterSpy, block the installation of the program. 7Search.com's owner also appears to have ties to validatedsearch.com, a site that competes with McAfee's SiteAdvisor by providing third-party certification to end users that a given website is trustworthy. The administrative contact for both sites, as well as browseraccelerator.com is listed as one Patrick Devereaux in Chicago, according to Whois search results..."