Bank of America launched a co-branded version of Earthlink's toolbar designed to prevent users from surfing to fraudulent websites. Of note is its official name, Bank of America Toolbar Powered by Earthlink. It's highly unusual for a bank, especially the largest consumer bank in the country, to give a partner such high billing. Our guess, although unconfirmed, is that Earthlink is paying the bank for the product placement.

In a similar manner to eBay's toolbar released in 2002, the BofA/Earthlink version uses red, green, and yellow lights to indicate whether a website is known to be safe (green), known to be fraudulent (red), or unknown (yellow). A popup blocker is also included. The toolbar is free and can be downloaded by any Internet Explorer for Windows user, you do not have to be a customer of the bank or Earthlink. According to Earthlink, a Mac version will be available soon. The toolbar does not work in other browsers.

The toolbar was announced in a press release today, and is accessible from a small link on the right of the homepage (click on inset for a closeup).

Analysis
Bank of America's toolbar is the first of what we expect to be a major source of differentiation during the next five years: the branded desktop presence (see OBR 85, for more information). The Scamblocker toolbar is a relatively low-tech entry into the space. More sophisticated offerings, such as Southwest Airlines Ding (NetBanker, 5 Dec), are on the way later this year, if not at BofA, then at its U.S. competitors.

--JB