|
HOME TOPICS SEARCH ABOUT ME |
technofile Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983 Scumware, Part 2: Typical scumware programs and what they doOct. 10, 2001 By Al Fasoldt Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt Copyright © 2001, The Post Standard Last week I described a disturbing trend I call "scumware." It's software that occupies the lowest run on the ethical ladder. Scumware masquerades as adware -- free software that contains advertising. But instead of simply showing you ads, scumware might track what you are doing or it might change the contents of Web pages without informing either you or the owner of the site. This is not a joke. I am not exaggerating or making this up. Scumware is real. Let's name names. Gator is one. Gator calls itself the "smart online companion." The folks who let Gator loose on innocent users claim that it "Fills in forms with no typing!" and "Let's you compare prices while you shop online!" What it actually does is spy on you and hide things from you when you browse Web sites. Here's what PC World magazine says about Gator: "Gator covers banner ads on a site with ads from its clients. The program also sends periodic reports to Gator's server about the Web sites you've visited and the ad banners you've clicked, so Gator can favor you with ever-more-relevant ads. According to the company's lengthy privacy policy, the data Gator collects is anonymous and will not be sold." If you have Gator on your Windows PC, read that description again, then ask yourself if that's OK with you. The folks behind Gator spy on your habits and hide ads on Web sites you visit so that you can't see them. You see ads Gator wants you to see. Did you know your friendly little Gator does that? You can get Gator by downloading it from www.gator.com, but I doubt many people do that. Most Gator users get it more or less automatically. It's installed onto their Windows PCs when they download and install software over the Web. In other words, Gator, like a lot of other scumware, rides the coat tails of software installations. Some users probably never know they got more than what they bargained for. Let's name names. Ezula is another. Ezula is the company behind TopText. You get Ezula's TopText when you download and install Kazaa, a Napster-like file-sharing program. The folks behind Kazaa say 3 million people have downloaded it. That's a lot of TopText users. Here's what PC World says about TopText: "Ezula's TopText works by overlaying hyperlinks onto whatever Web page you're viewing. While visiting ESPN.com, for example, you might see a yellow TopText link on the word football that, if clicked, would take you to a competing sports site." If you went to my Web site, twcny.rr.com/technofile, and clicked on a word that TopText turned into a hyperlink, you'd be taken to a site that Ezula wants you to go to for advertising reasons. But since the link is viewed in MY site, on one of MY pages, you are very likely to think that I put the link there. (In fact, you might not even realize that TopText got installed on your Windows PC, and that means you might not ever realize that I have nothing to do with those links on my pages.) In such a circumstance, I am no longer in charge of my own good name. I'm not the keeper of my own reputation. Ezula is. Ezula's advertisers are. I consider this unacceptable. There are many more scumware programs. For more information, visit the scumware hall of shame at www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/. |