Spyware in Kazaa, Limewire, Grokster

BigMacMike writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle (via the sfgate.com website) has a story that Kazaa, LimeWire, and others have secretly hidden software in their applications that track users' browsing habits." Not the first time. The corporate response is that they literally didn't know what was in these secondary applications that they were providing to be downloaded and installed alongside their primary program. Believe it if you wish.

Comments

Believe it if you wish

[SuperDuG]

This is slashdot "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." not "Tabloids for nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter".

As for spyware and adware, if you are using one of these programs chances are that you aren't doing it for legal reasons from the get-go. Do you really think that you have any rights while breaking the law???

Seriously people you can't really argue how these companies are "bad" when you yourselves are using these programs for completely illegal purposes. All these programs do is suck bandwidth and violate copyrights.

Granted there are legal reasons to use these programs, but the other 99% of the traffic is no where near legal. If you don't like the spyware then don't install the programs... if you want massive amounts of mp3's and pr0n then go ahead and download them, but be aware ... they are going to throw ads at you that will maybe score them a buck or two.

On a side note I'm actually tired of Napster clones always making the page on slashdot and this will be the last comment I make to such a story because all we're doing is helping to promote copyright violations and fuel the fire that made the DMCA possible.