Good Spyware?

Well it may sound like an oxymoron at first but there certainly are some good reasons for Spyware to exists and be implemented.  Take for instance parents who want to monitor their children’s internet activity.  You certainly can’t argue with that practice in this day and age.  The parent, being the legal guardian of the child, makes this practice legitimate.  The argument for or against Spyware typically revolves around freedom, and in the case of parent/child, there typically isn’t much disagreement as to who’s the boss.  The in-home monitoring can get a little less acceptable when it comes to roommates, spouses, or siblings spying on each other with the very same software!  Another good use of Spyware is for a corporation’s control of its infrastructure and IT assets.  No matter how fiercely contested by some employees, the bottom line is that the employer owns the network and the PCs.  If the employer wants to enact a Spyware program, there can be very few good arguments against it.

Why Do We Have Spyware?

Spyware was essentially developed to provide a supply and demand balance between small application developers and the public end-users that use their applications.  It goes something like this:  the end user wants a variety of small utilities or wants to try-out an application they’ve just discovered but have very little information in the form of major reviews or recommendations.  Additionally, the person or small company developing this software is unfamiliar to the end user, so the idea of sending them money (not as easy back in the beginning of Spyware days) was even more daunting.  This situation causes built up demand (i.e., the consumers want the applications) and not enough supply (programmers are not getting paid for the applications and have little incentive for distribution).   How do we resolve this issue?  Marketing people, of course!  The marketing or advertising firms jump in as the middleman here and balance the supply and demand.  With some help from the programmers, the marketing folks set up Spyware on the developer’s application.  The marketing firm collects the data that the Spyware retrieves and pays a fee to the programmer.  The consumer gives up some of their privacy in return for cheap or free software.  See, everything balances out here.  The programmer is getting paid for their work; the marketing folks get marketing data for a fee; and the end user gets cheap or free software in return for providing information or being forced to view advertisements.  Viola!  We have Spyware!

What Can We Do About Spyware?

Basically end-users can deal with Spyware proactively or in many cases are forced to deal with it reactively.  From the proactive standpoint, the steps to avoid Spyware are very similar to those one may use to avoid getting a virus on your PC.  Don’t download unknown software, don’t open e-mails from strangers, etc.  One very important distinction between Spyware prevention and virus prevention is the legal mumbo-jumbo that most applications force you to “accept” upon installing their software.  Typically, if an application has some sort of tracking or advertising feature, it should put this information in the legal terms and conditions.  Obviously, the problem here is that nobody reads the terms and conditions!  You’re not going to find a term or condition saying “hey, by the way, there is a nasty virus in this application that will make chop meat of your hard drive!”

OK, so your PC is slowing to a crawl because it is loaded up with lots of little buggers following, recording, and reporting on your every move. Fortunately, there are many options out there to take care of the leeches known as Spyware.  You can download software that can be very effective in cleaning up your PC.  The helpful utilities are typically inexpensive and in some cases, they’re even free!