Free Spyware

Spyware is a secret malware installed without user knowledge or consent on user computers in order to gather information about user activities as well as collect personal data. This type of installation is against privacy laws and perpetrators can be persecuted to the full extent of the law. Sometimes, however, spyware can be installed by corporations to monitor their employee activities, and this usage is more slippery in terms of legality. Spyware can collect personal information, such as web surfing habits and web-sites that have been visited, but can also hijack user control of the computer, for example by installing other software and redirecting Web browsers. Besides collecting information 'passively', spyware can engage the active mode, that is change computer settings, reset home pages, modify preferences, etc, although at this point the more appropriate nomenclature would be malware/trojan.

Spyware can arrive at your computer when you visit a website, open an attachment to an email or instant messages, and from direct file-sharing connections. Also, a user may unknowingly accept an End User License Agreement from freeware or shareware software that stipulates installing spyware programs. Since users rarely read license agreements, this is a very easy and popular route for spyware authors to distribute their applications - and the one which also gets them of the hook in terms of legal liabilities. Spyware, by its very nature, does not announce its presense to the user and tries to avoid detection. Adware is a curious case of spyware - to some it has all the characteristics of spyware because it tracks, collects, and reports user activity information. Nevertheless, marketing firms cringe at this classification, for obvious reasons - if adware by itself can be acceptable as part of freeware bundle, hardly anyone would knowingly tolerate presence of spying programs on their computers. Since marketing companies have such a powerful presense on the web and are at the top of the food chain in terms of advertisement dollars, many Internet Security companies have made a pact with the devil and rather amusingly classify such adware-spyware programs 'potentially unwanted programs' (PUP). Unwanted indeed! Like spyware presence can ever be wanted - that is, unless you install it yourself to spy on others! How do those marketing firms get away with the murder? That's easy! They argue that all the disclosures required for informed consent are included in the end user download agreement.