Sold as a generic pop-up blocker, STOPzilla is also designed to stop adware and spyware, kill unwanted cookies, and has a history eraser feature.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Associate Editor [June 16, 2003]

STOPzilla founder and president Scott DeSapio says he and colleagues at International Software Systems Solutions (ISSS) had worked together for about 20 years when they decided to go out on their own (at a time when the consulting business was in decline).

Colleagues were trying to find a good idea, when, DeSapio says, inspiration struck. "I was on the plane on my way back from Chicago where I'd done an assessment, and I came upon an article about pop-up ads. It talked about how annoying they were. When I got back, I set up a meeting and asked our engineer if he good build a pop-up killer. He said it could be done in two weeks."

Development began around January, 2002 and was complete in April of that year. "We released without fanfare, without great expectations," says DeSapio. "On our first day, we were selling products. I called a meeting that week and said, hey, there's something here. A year and a half later, all ISSS resources were devoted to STOPzilla."

The company had a distribution center in Texas, customer service in Wisconsin, and development in Florida. The company has just purchased commercial real estate in Florida and is expecting to move all staff there.

DeSapio began with a small marketing budget, and started using only search engine ads. He says that prices for ads in his industry have risen rapidly, and although that's annoying, he's particularly irritated by unethical trademarks. He says, "some of our competitors just don't like an honest footrace. They trademarked generic terms for their product, terms the whole space was bidding on. The trademark office doesn't know any better, and they grant a trademark. Then these companies tell the search engines they cannot sell this term. But it hasn't hurt us like I thought it would."

When initially released, the product did not block spyware and adware. But after talking to his customers, DeSapio is convinced that most pop-ups viewed by home users are served by intrusive software. He explains, "we released a product last year in April that blocked pop-ups and when we released it, we were confident we had no problems. But immediately, people were writing to us saying, 'hey, we're still getting pop-ups.' So we called them on the phone and went through their machine with them. The majority of our customers were thrilled to get involved. We found applications that would spawn ads that had nothing to do with the browser."

DeSapio convened a meeting and the consultants put together a solution to the problem that actually prevents the operating system itself from spawning pop-up ads. The initial edition just blocked pop-ups served to or by the browser. The current edition prevents all pop-ups, whatever their source. There was an immediate sales boost. "Our conversion to sale quadrupled immediately," claims DeSapio.

DeSapio is enthusiastic about the potential of marketing to ISPs. He says, "we knew from the beginning that ISPs would be all over this. We went to ISPCON a few weeks ago to roll out the product. Our big selling point is that we're giving ISPs a power no other software provider gives them. We allow an ISP to integrate their current subscriber management system with STOPzilla using a standard Web services tool we built. It allows an ISP to say, 'you get STOPzilla when you sign up, but I'll take it away if you leave me.'"

DeSapio says that ISPs are losing money when they hand out software to customers who then leave. "STOPzilla doesn't bill the ISP for something they're not using. I saw smiles every day at ISPCON when I explained this," he says.

STOPzilla has other innovative features. The software is designed to not block pop-ups spawned by user actions, such as clicking on a link. It can be updated regularly, and in fact, DeSapio says, "it calls home every morning to see if there's anything new."

The software has received a five cows endorsement from TuCows. Readers wishing to get a better understanding of common questions should read the quirky STOPzilla FAQ, which DeSapio wrote.

Pricing and availability
The software is available as a per-user license or through a revenue share. In the revenue share model, the ISP offers users an extended free trial, of 60 days instead of the retail 15 days, and gets a percentage of the revenue from customers who buy the product.

Per-user pricing varies depending on the size of the ISP, but DeSapio says that it's generally about 60 cents per month per user.

When offering this software to users, ISPs should keep in mind that freeware is available. A colleague at internetnews.com uses the browser pop-up blocking features of Netscape, and uses German freeware, SpyBot Search & Destroy from PepiMK Spyware, to defeat adware and spyware.

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