quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
quote:
Originally posted by Sam Spade
The EULA says:
""If you change your home page, search page or default error page after installation of the Software, a Pass-Through Toolbar will be installed at the bottom of your web browser and shall remain active as long as the Software is installed ***and information related to such change, including but not limited to the web address (URL), for the new home page, search page and default error page will be sent to C2's servers or third party servers.***"
That makes it spyware. My home page and search engine preferences are my own business.
Spyware is software that collects things WITHOUT your knowledge.
Since an EULA is MEANT to be read and since it clearly informs you about what it is doing, makes it that it is NOT spyware!
<sigh> I have seen that attempt at justification elsewhere in this forum. Does it not concern any of you that the same excuse is often used by disreputable software vendors?
To be spyware, software does not have to be secret, or act in secrecy. It simply needs to report a user's actions/movements/preferences. Spyware is often successfully installed because the purveyors rely on human kind's natural tendency to trust those that appear to be reputable; spyware purveyors also depend on habit, carelessness and social engineering, or innocuous non-descriptive phrases like 'sponsor program' that give no clue about what is actually going to happen.
To illustrate alternative points of view...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=spyware
and
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/spywarewhat.mspx
The first link makes no reference to "without your knowledge" For the second link, the key point is 'APPROPRIATELY obtaining your consent'.
The really important thing is that y'all KNOW that users are not reading the EULA, and have known for a long time, yet nothing is done to improve the situation. Is this because, to quote Patchou "it could be redesigned to warn you better but then, nobody would install it"?
