Spyware??? Adware???

IACOJ · Site Admin Joined: Oct 15, 2003 Posts: 760

After being at the FTC Spyware Workshop in April and having the chance to hear some of the industry leaders comment on what they consider spyware and adware, I've been waiting for something like this to happen. the industry leaders of Adware claim their products are not spyware at all, yet they can serve targetted ads to the people who have the software on their systems, based on the sites and pages being visited. I could be wrong but... If the software can do that, doesn't that mean it has to know where you are and what you are looking for?

Large companies like WhenU and Claria aka Gator state that their software is not spyware because EVERYONE who has it on their system intentionally downloaded it. The folks over at PCPitStop did some polling and determined that over 70% of the people who had this kind of software on their system didn't know it was there, nevermind how it got there.

Now WhenU has hired an investment bank to assist them explore their options Is it possible to clean up their image enough that the methods behind how they get their software on peoples PC are no longer considered malicious? Should Adware and Spyware be categorized seperately? The line in many cases seems to be an extremely fine one.

Mere_Mortal · Lieutenant Joined: Apr 10, 2004 Posts: 271 Location: UK

IACOJ · Site Admin Joined: Oct 15, 2003 Posts: 760

Mike was at the workshop. In fact Paul and I had dinner with him and several other the evening before.

Since I originally made the post, WhenU is now trying to challenge the Utah Spyware law. Seems to me if what they are doing isn't spyware, then they shouldn't really be concerned about the law.

Something I found interesting was Avi Nader saying that WhenU has been installed 100 Million times, but has been uninstalled 80 Million times. For those who weren't there, he said that during his panel time at the workshop. I could be wrong but that doesn't sound like a very happy client base to me. Either that or the folks who installed it, weren't aware that is what was happening. On their website the numbers aren't anywhere close to that...

btw.. welcome back


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