Jeff presents us with a comprehensive list of powerful products to rid one's
computer of (un)wanted "spyware".

A few months ago, I read an article in CPU magazine (one of the few computer
rags that I now read), where the author was bemoaning the fact the "spyware"
assassins and quarantiners were breaking his software all over the place.

Here is the article from www.computerpoweruser.com (June 2004 issue.)

Spyware 2.0 The Saint, Alex St.John

There's never a quiet day when you're running a software company. After
months of dealing with the technical headaches generated for my company by
Microsoft and Sun getting into a billion dollar tiff over Java IP, we're
finally able to get back to the business of selling video games online. At
least that's what I thought until one of the Internet's leading "removeware"
products decided that my WildTangent Web Driver product was "spyware." My
support manager informs me that support calls are rolling in as consumers
naively accept the recommendations of their removeware product and delete
the Web driver, thereby breaking all of the games they've been playing that
depend on it. The standard Windows Uninstaller for our product works fine
and doesn't leave a mess, but once a removeware vendor lists your products,
consumers just assume your uninstaller can't be trusted.

It turns out that this particular removeware product is just generically
deleting all files on the users hard drive under the folder name
"WildTangent," then purging our registry entries, leaving nothing but broken
games behind it. We're faced with the distinct possibility that some
significant subset of the 78 million Web Driver gamers online are going to
call us for customer support because they trusted this software and screwed
up their computers with it.

Of course, I immediately set about getting in contact with this company to
find out what's going on. It turns out that they are located in Europe and
appear to be a company of about one guy. Attempts at phone and email contact
are unsuccessful. "What exactly is it we're doing that makes them think
we're spyware?" I ask, but the answer is troubling: "This guy says you are."


I call the CEOs of a couple other small online software publishers I know
and ask if they are having this problem. The answer is a resounding "yes,"
all of them have a story about trying to reach one of these removeware
vendors to try to get them to unlist their completely benign software
products from automated deletion. Research reveals that they are mostly
one-to four-person operations. Some are politically opposed to selling
software for money and one says they make their software to drive "social
change." They have no formal standards for differentiating legitimate
software from malign software beyond sweeping generalizations that they
apply selectively to some software products but not others. They also seem
to rely on hysterical reports from consumers having troubles with their
computers who ascribe all manner of nefarious behavior to various software
products including our own. Many of the problems appear to be associated
with users trying to delete programs manually on the assumption that the
standard Windows uninstall process can't be trusted and then seeking help
when they screw up their own computers.

None of the removeware vendors appears to make any attempt to contact the
companies whose software they are breaking, inform them of the support
requests they are getting from their users, or make any attempt to link to
our support forums where some of the same issues are dealt with frequently
and correctly. These companies presume all online distributed software
guilty and malign.

To be perfectly fair, real spyware and adware has become a serious online
plague, and these guys do a great job of battling it. They are also doing a
great job of challenging legitimate software companies to look closely at
their privacy and security practices to make sure that they are as clean and
clear with consumers as they can possibly be. The problem is that in their
zeal to stamp out evil software wherever it hides, they are also sewing
consumer paranoia, damaging legitimate online software publishers, and
empowering Microsoft to assume more control of the software that reaches
your computer in the name of "security."

For my part, we're overhauling our newest generation of products to ensure
that consumers have maximum understanding and control over everything they
do. It's a lot of work and in the absence of any industry consensus on the
subject we have to define our own standards for good privacy practice and
hope the removeware guys agree with us.

Denys

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