What Software Do Cable Installers Place on Your PC?

{e}N0S asks: "The cable guy came over to install a cable modem at my Dad's house. As I watched him do his stuff I noticed he was installing something called Broadjump Client Foundation. I know you don't need software for a cable modem to work so I asked if it was necessary. He said he had to do his list of things, and we had to sign that he did his list of things, otherwise he couldn't leave it with us to use. Since I can always remove the software, I agreed, but I noticed while he was flipping through the install, he was clicking 'agree' on every EULA that came up. Doing a search on Google for 'Broadjump Client Foundation' comes up with some pretty scary stuff as far as what it does, like: 'Builds a database of subscriber demographics and buying behaviors to help evolve and refine marketing efforts.' Now, how does this affect us? Neither myself or anyone in my family agreed to the software; the cable guy did. And is there anyway to get cable companies to stop doing this as I can imagine since the cable company is a monopoly in this town, that the percentage of people who still have this software on their computers is pretty high."

Comments

Re:Spyware

[HiThere]

How do you distinguish between inflexible bureaucrats and a conspiracy?

I know the typical image of a conspiracy is a *small* bunch of people of people gathered together in a darkened room... but that's just drama. People only hide their identity as conspiracy members if they think someone is out to get them for it. If you're part of a powerful one, like a corporation, then you don't need to bother with that.

What? You don't think that a corporation is inherently a conspiracy? Then what do you think a conspiracy is? Unions, corporations, businessmen's clubs, gardening clubs, are all coeteries of people gathered together to enforce their vision upon a resisting world. They are all people "breathing together" in meetings (which is what the word means, if you follow it's roots).

Now if you want to justify some more restricted definition (reasonable, as the contexts in which it is used seem to imply that some more restrictive meaning is needed), then you need to specify what the definition should be. But just looking at the physical observables, it seems to me that telecom corporations count as conspiracies. (Any you've got to include the employees. You don't have a conspiracy without followers as well as leaders.)