Here's a background article on spyware:Spyware

If you want to know whether some ad company or rogue has placed software on your computer without your knowledge or consent, several shareware try-before-buy programs are out there, and I suggest using a reputable site like www.zdnet.com to get one.

I ran a couple of these detection programs on my main home PC. Three advertisers had dumped their, um, stuff on my machine. Jerks! Thieves! Hey, those are *my* computing resources you're wasting, and I paid good money for them.

Which could be a question for debate: Spyware -- should it be illegal?

My stance on this is obvious. The advertisers are stealing my computing resources. Spyware should be very illegal.

In your post, you mentioned "without your knowledge or consent." That is the trick here; they did have your consent, although I would argue it was hardly a knowledgeable consent.

When you install a program, you usually get a dialog box with a long list of terms and conditions for using the software. Its called a EULA (End User License Agreement). If you read the extremely fine print in the EULA when you installed those shareware programs, you'd discover that the spyware is covered, although of course they don't call it "spyware." Take a look at a EULA very closely the next time you install something (or when you re-install something you've installed before that you know installs spyware too) and watch how they slip it past you in terms that are very easy to miss.

All of this is deliberate, of course. If the spyware provisions were in very plain language, bolded in a large font conspicuously at the front of the EULA, plenty of people might think twice beforing continuing the installation.

One of the things you have to keep in mind with this sort of thing is that rarely do you ever get things truly for free - these software products are ultimately commercial ventures. You have to weigh and balance the benefit you get from free software versus the detriment of spyware providing marketing support to commercial companies at the expense of your computer's processing power, bandwidth, and hard drive space. Of course, we're talking about very minute percentages of power, bandwidth, and space, but its still annoying.

I don't think spyware should be made criminal, but I would be in support of measures designed to ensure spyware provisions in EULAs were up-front and easy to understand, in order to make the consent knowledgeable and informed.

The FTC last week had a workshop on Spyware and there have been a couple of legislative efforts put in the works to regulate. The most recent legislation was proposed in March. I'm not sure what the status on it is yet.

Spyware -- should it be illegal? I think inability to provide what I will call proper "informed consent" as opposed to reading a mind numbing EULA should make Spyware illegal for now. I agree with Azure-Citizen that if proper regulations can be put in place to inform and empower consumers then perhaps said programs will be acceptable. I do think this is a reasonable way of funding "free" software if some of the stealth is taken off of the implications of installing it.

Doc

EULAs ought to be illegal too

Or at least regulated to use standard English and be presented in a format that an average adult reader can understand, say 8th grade level as is done with federal tax forms.

Then have a series of yes/no screens? I don't know, maybe the whole thing is just too wide open because 99.999% of people installing software don't bother reading the EULA.

Therefore, can it possibly be a real legal document? I mean, if nearly everyone does not read it? Take for instance when you buy a vehicle on credit, and virtually every other kind of loan. Someone, by law, who knows what's in the contract has to go through it with you item by item. In some instances, each item has to be initialed to indicate acceptance.

This could be easily implemented in software. It would delay the installation process, but at least the installer would consider the contents of the EULA before clicking on through.

Regarding the use of my computing resources, the amount used might be small but it is still theft. Shoot, a hundred bucks might be small to a national bank, but if I took it I'd still be up for theft.

Heh, then you might have instances where spyware comes on board from the use of spyware detection software. Now that'd be a kicker, eh?

Three good spyware detection/prevention programs:

Spybot - Search & Destroy (detection and removal, some prevention)

Ad-Aware (detection and removal)

SpywareBlaster (no detection, but good prevention)

All three are free and highly Izzy recommended. I depend on them to keep my computers spyware free. They're easily found with a Google search. Gotta run for now, I'll edit in the links later.

I think spyware should be illegal, regardless of their fine print in downloading. I recently had a bug (spy) on my system, that took me about 3 days to figure out how to get it off. Every time the spyware detection systems would find it they would delete it and then it would replicate itself. It was nasty, theft of time, theft of my memory, and theft of my hard drive space. I finally found a technical website where some programmers wrote a system to actually remove it, it took about 15 attempt for it to actually remove! There is no reason for a user to have to subject itself to this harassment unless they clearly know what they are getting themselves into. It seems obvious to me that it is not clear and therefore we don't know what we are getting ourselves into. Oh and by the way, Uproar.com (where we played acro) loaded a nice supply of spyware on my system. Thanks uproar, as if your banner ads wasn't enough advertising for you!

I use all the programs Izzy recommended and they are good. I am considering purchasing one as a quadruple protection!

Just a sidenote:

If you are ever zapped by a virus, trojan horse or worm that you can't get rid of, you might want to give a shout to these guys:

try google for spywareinfo.com

They run a free service that I have found priceless. Also great information on the latest viruses and a pretty good forum on what free Anti Virus and Firewalls are out there.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled debate.

Oh, and YES I think spyware SHOULD be illegal!

Should spyware be illegal? AB-SO-FREAKIN'-LUTELY!!!!

Just a few weeks ago I logged on to search NFL.com. Instead I got redirected to a search engine I had never heard of. I went to my favorites and tried to redirect to another site. Nope. No go. Tried to type in another address. Nothing. Tried to go back to my home page Still nothing.

Oh no! I've been hijacked!

I went to my Tools options and checked my Internet Options. My home page had been hijacked and my home page now read this particular search engine. No matter how I tried to reset Tools to my original homepage, this dad-blamed search engine kept coming up at as the default. I couldn't get rid of it!

Worse still, it kept adding a porn site for "Mature Lovers" to my Favorites. I couldn't get rid of that either. Good thing the wife and kids were away on spring break from school.

I called in the heavy hitters. Namely, my brother who is a certified computer nerd and has forgotten more about them than I will ever know. He came over one afternoon and two hours later he had gotten my browser un-hijacked.

I already had Ad-Aware installed and he added Spybot, Spyware Blaster and Spyware Guard. However, though my browser is mine again, the offending search engine still rears its ugly head every now and then especially if I have multiple windows open and trying to use Google or Yahoo on one of them.

I freakin' HATE spyware! I'm pretty certain that I'm going to have to erase my hard drive to get rid of this thing once and for all.

A tip of the hat to Izdaari for her recommendations. I've got all three of them and use them religiously a few times a week. As if viruses and spam weren't headaches enough--now this.

For a good read about how creepy spyware is check out this article:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/

It's enough to make a fella rethink how useful the Internet really is at times.

Nighttimer, your system is still hijacked. Most likely either a program running in the background or a registry setting is pointing to the spyware. Bring up the task monitor and google the name of every single process running on your system until you find the offending program; hopefully the search will also produce a way to eliminate it. I had a similar problem with another system. Turned out -- after 2 hours of searching -- that Lexmark had loaded spyware as part of their printer driver. Once I found the program that was the problem, I had to then search the registry for that program and remove every mention of it, then reboot, then delete the program before it would stop bringing up ads once an hour. Stupid Lexmark.

Also (building on what amf said), you can check the registry directly in XP by using the registry editor to look at the key:

\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

and look to see what programs are loading automatically everytime Windows boots up. If you recognize something that is spyware, remove its corresponding entry and you can prevent it from loading at the next system start. Just be careful when making changes with the registry editor, as it can be unforgiving with mistakes. Also, if you don't initially recognize something in the Run key, don't assume its spyware until investigating it a little further; there are going to be some legitmate programs automatically running on your system that fufill necessary functions but their purpose is not immediately obvious. The data field will usually specify which directory location it is loading from, which is a good starting clue.

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I understand everyone's sentiments regarding spyware. I hate it too, and its a constant battle to intercept and prevent it from taking root. Unfortunately, its not illegal (arguments that it is theft would not hold up in court), and its unlikely we'll ever see a law passed to criminalize it. We might get a law passed to enforce better EULA disclosures specific to spyware up front, but that is really a big "maybe." Currently, your best bets are on 1) actually reading the EULAs, 2) routinely using programs like the ones Izdaari recommended, and 3) avoiding questionable shareware and software that tries to download itself when you visit some websites. Ever had a dialog box that comes up asking if you want to "install (name), a free piece of software that will... X" when you're visiting a website, and they tell you X is a program that says it will keep your system clock synchronized to the Naval Observatory, or give you weather updates based on your zip code? Well, that's nice, but odds are pretty good there is spyware bundled with the program and this is simply their delivery vehicle.