that is written like an advertisement . please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view . march 2016 learn how and when to remove this template message mindspark interactive network headquarters yonkers new york united states area served worldwide owner iac website mindspark interactive network alexa rank 11 661 april 2015 update 1 available in english mindspark interactive network inc. was an operating business unit of iac known for the development and marketing of entertainment and personal computing software as well as mobile application development . mindspark s mobile division acquired ios application developer apalon in 2014 which was known for popular entertainment applications such as weather live emoji keypad and calculator pro . 2 mindspark s home office was based in yonkers new york with other offices located in los angeles california ; oakland california ; new york new york ; and bellevue washington among others . tim allen and eric esterlis served as the co presidents of mindspark . 3 former mindspark ceo joey levin now serves as ceo of iac . 4 contents 1 history 2 products 3 iac s toolbar business 4 mywebsearch toolbar 5 as a pup distributor 6 references history edit mindspark interactive network was incorporated in 1999 under the name ctc bulldog inc. 5 on january 20 1999 the idea for its first product iwon.com was conceived by its co founders bill daugherty and jonas steinman and led to a subsequent office opening at irvington ny . 6 on october 5 1999 iwon.com was launched and the company name was changed from ctc bulldog inc. to iwon.com inc. on oct 1 2000 iwon.com inc. launched the sales team and offices were opened in new york los angeles san francisco and chicago . on nov 18 2001 the company purchased excite.com assets out of bankruptcy . 7 8 the company then changed its name to the excite network . on oct 1 2002 the excite network launched an online portal called myway.com which replicated many of yahoo s popular features without advertisements fees and intrusive privacy policies . in the same year the company launched several entertainment products such as smileycentral and popularscreensavers and changed its name to focus interactive . in november 2015 the myway.com site posted after many years we have decided to shut down the myway website . the site will be available until the end of december 5 2015 . in 2003 focus interactive changed its name again to interactive search holdings . 9 the company s properties now consisted of iwon.com excite.com my way my websearch and online advertising sales firm maxonline . in december 2003 properties of interactive search holdings reached 17 % of us internet users . in 2004 ask jeeves purchased interactive search holdings for 501 million . 10 according to a press release issued by ask jeeves interactive search holdings was the 9th most visited property in december 2003 with destinations such as my way my web search and iwon . 11 on jul 20 2005 ask jeeves was purchased by iac 12 and interactive search holdings inc. was renamed to iac consumer applications & portals iac cap . iac cap 13 14 15 was a wholly owned business of iac interactivecorp nasdaq iaci that centered on properties that enhance online communication and social networking . on jun 20 2006 iac cap launched zwinky 16 17 18 a virtual world in which the users have the opportunity to communicate and play with other people . on apr 1 2007 webfetti.com was launched allowing users to easily customize their social networking profile pages and blogs . on apr 1 2008 iac cap acquired starnet interactive 19 an israeli start up that created girlsense . on aug 1 2006 vimeo was acquired by iac and became part of iac cap in 2008 . on jan 1 2009 iac consumer applications & portals was renamed to mindspark interactive network inc 20 mindspark . the ask partner network llc formerly a division of ask jeeves became a part of mindspark . on may 20 2010 mindspark bought a majority stake in diet tracking site dailyburn which was responsible for mindspark s fitness products . 21 22 on oct 6 2010 mindspark announced its mindspark worlds division would begin developing applications focused on social gaming . 23 in 2011 mindspark interactive network inc acquired the gaming platform created by voxpop 24 and the platform was attached to its iwon contest and sweepstakes brand . in 2014 mindspark interactive network inc acquired slimware utilities a software product suite geared towards pc optimization services . 25 in june 2015 slimware utilities was named pc magazine s editors choice for best free tune up software . 26 on nov 3 2014 mindspark interactive network inc acquired mobile app developer apalon a top 10 developer of ios applications worldwide as measured by monthly downloads according to the app annie index . 27 products edit mindspark operated a range of consumer mobile applications desktop utilities and browser applications . mindspark s mobile division produced popular applications including weather live and pimp your screen . 28 the company s desktop utilities division offered optimization services . 29 the company offered browser based consumer applications including popular applications such as zwinky and zwinky cuties ; gaming sites such as retrogamer.com and gamingwonderland.com ; and social websites such as mywebface.com and myfuncards.com . iac s toolbar business edit many of the mindspark products required the user to install a toolbar . according to the iac s business strategy iac is increasing its toolbar business which places various clickable tools on the browsers of internet users and enables iac to collect a fee each time the toolbar is used . in the third quarter of 2010 iac s search revenue increased 20 percent over the previous year to 205.1 million while operating income in the search business was up 43 percent to 28.9 million . the increase was a result of elevated consumer use of toolbars according to sandy mehta an analyst at hong kong based value investment principals ltd. mehta stated in an interview that the toolbar business is something that s really growing . 30 mywebsearch toolbar edit the mywebsearch toolbar also known as myway speedbar myway education guide 31 myway searchbar myallsearch search assistant myway search assistant or myweb searchbar was a web browser add on that purportedly provided additional function to a user s internet browser . the toolbar was required in many of mindspark products allowing the user to query search results using the mywebsearch engine . mywebsearch toolbar was previously known as myway searchbar . dell was known to pre install the software on their commercially sold machines . 32 older versions of the program displayed pop up advertisements on the user s screen and would take over the user s internet browser change the user s internet settings and would be installed without the user s permission causing the myway searchbar to be classified as spyware or adware . 33 the toolbar has also been verified as being notoriously difficult to remove . 34 subsequent versions of the mywebsearch toolbar were less intrusive and required the user s approval to be installed . as a pup distributor edit many if not all of mindspark s programs and toolbars were commonly classified as potentially unwanted programs or pups which may be installed without the user s explicit knowledge or consent . many of them exhibited malicious behaviors and could be considered malware . malwarebytes is an example of a trusted anti malware application that classifies mindspark s toolbars and applications as pups . it should be noted that many self claims made by mindspark should not necessarily be taken as direct truth . 35 references edit mindspark.com site info . alexa internet . retrieved 2015 04 22 . app annie index for apps amazon soars in the rankings after comixology acquisition . app annie . may 27 2014 . renner tom april 16 2015 . business council of westchester honors success of yonkers mindspark . yonkers daily . barry diller s iac plans to spin off its match and tinder business in an ipo . re code . retrieved 2016 03 08 . convergence creates controversy . lubbockonline . april 5 2000 . iwon.com was founded by bill daugherty and jonas steinman . iwon fumbles excite transition . cnet . january 8 2002 . iwon completes excite.com takeover . cnet . december 28 2001 . interactive search holdings inc. was formerly known as bulldog holdings . ask jeeves plunks down 343 million for interactive search holdings . informationweek . march 4 2004 . ask jeeves why buy interactive search holdings . search engine watch . april 7 2004 . iac interactive buy ask jeeves for 1.85 b in stock . cnn . march 21 2005 . iac consumer applications and portals enters into relationship with the neverblueads affiliate network . digital moses confidential . october 31 2007 . iac consumer applications & portals signs hollywood records pop sensation jordan pruitt as spokesperson across its online properties . prnewswire . bluetie adds more than two million users with iac partnership . bluetie . april 16 2008 . zwinky launches . mashable . december 6 2006 . zwinky . enotes . december 6 2006 . iac consumer applications & portals debuts zwinky cuties . prnewswire . iac consumer applications & portals acquires starnet interactive . venture capital cafe . may 21 2008 . offerpal media partners with mindspark interactive network . startup meme . september 22 2009 . iac buys into fitness social network dailyburn . techcrunch . may 20 2010 . new tool tuesday dailyburn . katywidrick.com . december 20 2011 . offerpal media partners with mindspark interactive network . cnn . october 6 2010 . iac s mindspark buys voxpop s gaming platform . paidcontent.org . feb 10 2011 . agc partners advises slimware utilities on its sale to iac . agcpartners.com . wilson jeffrey l. august 7 2014 . slimware utilities slimcleaner 4 . pcmag . pcmag . iac acquires mobile app developer apalon . seekingalpha.com . nov 3 2014 . dirks brent march 20 2015 . weather live update ushers in a better way to view upcoming condition changes . app advice . app advice . the best tuneup utilities . pcmag australia . january 15 2014 . iac s toolbar business growth . bloomberg . nov 9 2010 . myway education guide . myway.com . retrieved 2013 12 18 . myway search assistant how to remove . tom s hardware . retrieved 2016 01 03 . http www.bitdefender.com virus 1000212 en adware myway t.html my way search assistant add or remove programs entry information . bleepingcomputer . retrieved 2016 01 03 . mindspark toolbars . malwarebytes unpacked . retrieved 2016 01 03 . v t e iac match group blackpeoplemeet.com chemistry.com delightful friendscout24 howaboutwe match.com meetic group okcupid ourtime people media plentyoffish tinder the princeton review tutor.com twoo iac publishing about.com ask.com citygrid dictionary.com investopedia the daily beast iac applications apalon slimware ask applications video collegehumor dailyburn electus iac films notional vimeo homeadvisor homeadvisor other shoebuy.com retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title mindspark interactive network & oldid 738646942 categories companies established in 1999internet companiesiac company video game companies of the united statestime warner subsidiarieshidden categories articles with a promotional tone from march 2016all articles with a promotional tonearticles containing potentially dated statements from april 2015all articles containing potentially dated statements navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools 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