We get probably 1 thread per day on this very board, where someone is having problem with their computer, and it often turns out to be a spyware infestation.
Now, the guy who wrote (one of the strains of) MS Blaster is under arrest and will (hopefully) go to jail, as he should. But it seems to me that Adware/Spyware can be just as damaging as viruses and worms. Their behaviour patten is similar - you visit a website, and without your consent or desire, some crappy little piece of software ends up running on your machine, spying on you or just plaing consuming resources, even causing other programs and the machine itself to crash.
Is it just that the law as usual hasn’t caught up with reality yet? It should be a lot easier to track the authors of “phone home” and “data collection” type spyware/adware.
A lot of adware is technically legal. The devil is in the details; there’s usually some mention in the small print of the license agreement for whatever you thought you were getting. I don’t know that these have ever been tested in court.
Companies like Gator have lawyers. The lawyers tell them to “word it this way” on license agreements. You are stuck.
It would be nice if some Software Consumer Protection laws were put into place. E.g., they really had to tell you what they were going to do ahead of time. They had to uninstall to a pristine state. Plus other unrelated goodies I would hope for: you could sell software once you bought it. No mythical renting a license. Bye-bye to shrinkwrap license. They have to tell you before you buy it, let alone open it, what’s entailed.
But the mood in Washington DC is very pro-corporate. They can’t even propose anti-spam legislation that in fact wouldn’t make it worse.
Information about consumers is a very hot market. Billions are being made. $ buys politicians. You don’t have a chance.