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Secret Kazaa Documents Revealed in Court

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stuff-to-read dept.

Dan Warne writes "A fascinating range of Kazaa's internal documents were revealed in Federal Court in the ongoing court case against the Australian-based company today. One extraordinary philosophical manifesto by the company's chief technical officer showed that he was aware that Kazaa's activities were a huge legal risk. He also feared being 'out-innovated' by other P2P programs that didn't come bundled with adware. "if consumers can connect to FT (as well as Gnutella 2, eDonkey and Bittorrent) and it has no ads or adware then it would seem a good choice," Philip Morle says in the his manifesto. The documents are full of all sorts of other admissions-that-you'd-be-crazy-to-put-on-paper like how Kazaa employees "hate" installing the Kazaa Media Desktop on their machines because all the bundled adware slows your machine down and can hijack your web browser."

5 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sure there ain't no spyware... by tabkey12 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Note that their Skype website says: No Spyware, Adware or Malware
    Kazaa says: No Spyware

    Spot the difference, people!

    --
    Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
  2. Re:Currently... by dioscaido · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because they have "adware", not "spyware". A ridiculous distinction that allows many companies to morally justify their inclusion of such horrible pieces of code in their products.

    Just peek at Messenger Plus v3 (an add on for MSN Messenger) -- they include LOP in their installer, which hijacks your browser, your searches, adds a toolbar, and adds icons to your desktop, and is one of the most annoyingly difficult things to clean on your own. The Plus 'company' justifies it in that it's "adware", not "spyware", and that the user opted in when installing by not un-checking the default install option. What comes next is a hellish exercise of peering into the most obscure parts of the registry to kill the re-spawners that make the spyware^H^H^H^Hadware come back on reboot when things look clean. /end rant

  3. Re:And slashdot keeps advertising skype, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's hard to take the word of someone who is stating incorrect information.

    Skype is created by the original developers of Kazaa, but the original developers did not include any spyware/adware in KaZaa. The spyware/adware was added to Kazaa after it was sold to Sharman.

  4. Re:Currently... by Durzel · · Score: 5, Informative
    Straight from the installer's mouth.. What you agree to install...

    Step 1 of 4

    Kazaa file sharing application with: Bullguard Virus Protection, Altnet Topsearch.

    Kazaa is a free download supported by advertising from Cydoor, the GAIN Network and InstaFinder.

    Altnet PeerPoints Manager Package, an application that rewards you for sharing on Kazaa including My Search Toolbar and P2P Networking Application.

    Sharman Networks respects your privacy. Read the privacy policy. You must also agree to the user license agreements linked from below before continuing.

    [ ] I agree to the Kazaa Media Desktop End User License Agreement and Altnet PeerPoints Manager Package End User License Agreements.

    Seems it's just as polluted with spyware as it has always been.

  5. Eat your own dogfood by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 5, Informative
    Eat your own dogfood might be a better expression to describe it.

    A lot of tech companies use it to describe th practice of using their own products in house. That's also where to discover many of the problems that infuriate customers.

    --
    "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
    --Dr.W.Edwards Deming