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       What is Spyware
        Free Security Software

WARNING

Do you realise your computer could be sending information about you without your permission

This practice must be brought out into the open, so that you have a choice before giving out highly personal information. Thats what this issue is mainly about choice and awareness.

We are not here to stop the collection of consumer data, obviously it is really important information and helps companies survive in a competitive environment, but the manner in which it is gathered is a different matter.

Freeware is a great concept. Advertiser supported software that doesn't cost you anything, but is it really free? All you have to do is give your name, address, phone, e-mail, and some other general information. Not a bad trade-off, right? But, what if your personal information was also stored elsewhere on your hard drive, and transmitted your personal data via the Internet back to advertisers in exchange for more advertising? Ah, now is it free or is it spyware aka adware.

Spyware is Internet jargon for Advertising Supported software (Adware). It is a way for shareware authors to make money from a product, other than by selling it to the users. There are several large media companies Web3000, EverAd, and Aureate, just to name a few, that offer to place banner ads in their products in exchange for a portion of the revenue from banner sales. This way, you don't have to pay for the software and the developers are still getting paid. If you find the banners annoying, there is usually an option to remove them, by paying the regular licensing fee.

The problem with Adware is the concept of reporting your Internet surfing habits back home for data collection purposes. If this bothers you, then removing the spyware from your system might be a consideration.

Go Hip and Bonzi Buddy don't necessarily tranmit data back home but they are hard to remove Internet programs that seem to find their way onto your hard drive as well, that's why I've included them here.

This site is intended to raise awareness of the issue that certain companies through their software installs are placing "Media Plugins", "SpyWare", "Backdoor Santas" or "Trojans" on your computers without your explicit permission and then potentially forwarding information about software, browsing & purchasing habits back to their own data collection facilities. This type of software has become collectively known as SpyWare.

Most of these Adbots, or spyware programs DON'T collect specific information about you, but only report general demographics, and therefore are NOT stealing your name, credit card, or other personal information. But these capabilities do exist. Also its good not to wrongly accuse all Adware in this argument as proper Adware is a serious revenue model for many software companies that allows you to get products for free, and used correctly not pose a significant privacy threat.

The information gathered by these companies is potentially being sold and combined with other databases to build up profiles of individual web users, we believe this is primarily for direct marketing purposes. And to quote Gilles Lalonde "...what I do in the privacy of MY own HOME is MY business and MY business alone, like what you personally do in the privacy of YOUR own HOME, is YOUR business and YOUR business alone. Software authors that use spyware do not care about anyone's privacy. They breach our personal privacy and spoil our Internet experience ".

Within the net community certain individuals have literally gone beyond the call of duty in detecting and raising public awareness of these issues; we would personally like to thank them for all their hard and inspirational work. Where possible throughout this site credits are given directly to the individual with links through to other relevant resources.