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Microsoft Releases AntiSpyware Program
Nathan Weinberg writes "Microsoft released this morning Microsoft AntiSpyware, the product of last month's acquisition of GIANT. As I write in my report on my site, the program is very powerful, and certainly measures up to and may even beat Spybot and Ad-Aware. However, it's also pretty buggy, and Microsoft might have already sneaked in a pay subscription service."
The probably saw this:
2. TIME-SENSITIVE SOFTWARE. The software will stop running on July 31, 2005. You may not receive any other notice. You will not receive any further updates when the software stops running.
and figured OMG SUBSCRIPTION!
Another interesting EULA box is the actual definition of the software's function:
4. POTENTIALLY UNWANTED SOFTWARE. The software will search your computer for "spyware," "adware" and other potentially unwanted software ("Potentially Unwanted Software"). If it finds Potentially Unwanted Software, the software will ask you if you want to ignore, disable (quarantine) or remove it. The software will only remove or disable Potentially Unwanted Software as you instruct it. Removing or disabling the Potentially Unwanted Software may cause other software on your computer to stop working, and it may cause you to breach a license to use other software on your computer, if the other software installed the Potentially Unwanted Software on your computer as a condition of your use of the other software. You should read the license agreements for other software before authorizing the removal of any Potentially Unwanted Software. By using this software, it is possible that you will also remove or disable software that is not Potentially Unwanted Software. You are solely responsible for selecting which Potentially Unwanted Software the software removes or disables.
When I worked at Dell, they wouldn't let us dick with spyware stuff because of potential legal problems -- that is, the law might side with the malware.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Interesting question. Is a company that releases an inferior product, but that has a monopoly required to force their customers to pay subscription fees for multiple software packages by third parties needed to patch the vulnurability? And if they decide to release their own software to fix the problem, are they partaking in anti-competitive practices by wiping out companies that exist solely to patch the problem? If they charge a competitive fee for the software, is that better or worse than giving it out for free? On one hand they're screwing their customers who live with the bugs, on the other hand they're putting companies out of business.