180Solutions, Hotbar merge into Zango

Hotbar and 180solutions announced Wednesday that they will merge into a new company known as Zango.

"The merger creates increased available inventory and an even larger audience of potential customers whom advertisers can target utilizing Zango’s time-shifted ad-delivery model," according to a statement on the merger on the Zango website.

Company executives said the merger will benefit customers.

"The vision is to deliver consumers free, online entertainment experiences while automating and monetizing the ecosystem of content creators, publishers and webmaster entrepreneurs and advertisers," said Keith Smith, Zango CEO.

"We have built an extensive user base and effective advertising opportunities through a wide variety of internet services," said Oren Dobronsky, co-founder and CEO of Hotbar. "The scale of this merger makes possible an array of opportunities to fulfill consumer and advertising demand for the products of the new Zango."

Symantec sued Hotbar last June for the right to detect certain Hotbar programs as security risks.

Four months ago, 180Solutions dropped a lawsuit against security vendor Zone Labs that had sought to force the company to change software that alerted users to the security risks of 180Solutions products.