An infamous peer-to-peer program and a frivolous screen saver are among the inaugural members of a list of software’s most egregious spreaders of spyware.
The running tally is kept by a team of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Oxford that calls itself StopBadware. They hope to spur consumers to demand better coding from software makers. The initial roster of offenders includes four popular programs:
KaZaA, a peer-to-peer program that "claims to have ‘no spyware,’ but is bundled with software that is considered spyware" MediaPipe, a download manager that "does not completely remove all components and ‘obligations’ during the uninstall process" SpyAxe, a software-removal tool that "is difficult to exit without purchasing the full version of the product" Waterfalls 3, a screen saver that "is bundled with a Trojan horse-like program and modifies other software without disclosure"
For more on StopBadware, see an article from The Chronicle by Vincent Kiernan.
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