Consumer Friendly Downloads?

* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us Yahoo and AOL will be offering a new anti-spyware initiative to begin next year. The new initiative will allow vendors to get their software "certified" as easy to remove and not containing spyware. From the article: "It creates market incentives that will change how consumers see software," said Doug Leeds, Yahoo's vice president for product justice. Backers of the initiative believe that consumers wouldn't benefit much from a system in which good products simply display seals of approval. "They are looking for us to do it for them," Leeds said."

Comments

Recycled versign?

[sumdumass]

This sort of sounds like a recycled verisign sig. Unfortunatyl i doubt it would mean much to anyone at first. The majority of uasy to remove and not containing spyware. From the article: "It creates market incentives that will change how consumers see software," said Doug Leeds, Yahoo's vice president for product justice. Backers of the initiative believe that consumers wouldn't benefit much from a system in which good products simply display seals of approval. "They are looking for us to do it for them," Leeds said."sers i encounter think you only get trojans from visitiing porn sites and spyware from the same.

Maybe this is a good thing. The interweb won't be the same.

This reminds me of another article

[ThatGeek]

Way back in March, Slashdot carried an article saying Office Depot will only carry Windows XP approved software.

Don't get me wrong, I think spyware is bad. I also think a big company only supporting a few software titles (and probably charging a bit to do it) is bad too.

I'd really prefer to see some kind of meta-moderated system by users to rate software as clear of spyware as it would give small vendors more of a chance. Otherwise, we will just further entrench big monopolies.

A chain of trust ...

[Aceticon]

... is only as strong as it weakest link.

It all boils down to:
- Do we trust AOL and Yahoo to be honest in this sort of thing.
- Do we trust that AOL and Yahoo have the technical capability to effectivelly detect both reported and not yet reported forms of spyware.

Re:A chain of trust ...

[Homology]

It all boils down to:
- Do we trust AOL and Yahoo to be honest in this sort of thing.

Yahoo have no problems helping the Chineese government hunting down dissident journalists, and other US companies have been shown to actively help surpress free speech and democracy. So no, I certainly dont trust Yahoo in this. I do trust that Yahoo will do anything, given enough money.

Good idea...

[mister_llah]

Sure, it is old hat, but one of these days, there might be a "(insert company name approved) software" program that actually holds its weight and is useful/consistent/trustworthy...

I'm not exactly saying infinite monkeys/infinite typewriters, here, I'm just saying we've only had one major company do this so far (as far as I know) ... perhaps AOL/Yahoo will do it better? ... of course, considering the advertising on Yahoo... I'm not going to count on it from them, but it might inspire a knock-off.

Captain Cynical Returns

[Ckwop]

Let me get this straight. One company decides what is malware and what isn't. Ask yourself this, would Sony's rootkit have been considered a safe download? I think you'd find the answer is yes. This isn't an objective panel of experts deciding what is safe or what isn't, it's a company and this inherently flawed.

I find it hard to believe that any company, regardless of their otherwise good intentions, would refuse money from a company as Sony. In short, it may work in stoping the small spyware vendor but this is not nearly enough.

Simon.

Re:Captain Cynical Returns

[Tim C]

Some companies would not be buyable; most individuals would be buyable for the right sum of money. Don't forget that companies are run by collections of individuals - some of them are going to be as principled as you imagine your panel of experts to be.

If Sony waved a couple of million dollars under your nose to claim that their rootkit wasn't malware, would you really turn it down? You can retire on that - hell, invested properly, your kids can retire on it. All just for saying "Hey, you know what, this DRM isn't so bad after all..."

If you genuinely would turn it down, then I applaud your ability to stand by your principles; I really don't think I'd be able to myself.

Re:Captain Cynical Returns

[Wordsmith]

Stopping the small spyware vendor does quite a lot. A vendor like Sony, which is -generally- above-board (meaning it doesn't spend most of its time torturing puppies and whatnot) and accountable to millions of customers, shareholders and legal parters has a lot to lose when it does something nasty. Witness the massive backlash against the root kit, and Sony's eventual decision to pull it once it became a PR nightmare. An aware consumer market can fight back when someone like Sony pulls this nonsense.

It's a lot harder to fight back against the fly-by-night spyware vendor who is looking to collect some quick info - maybe even dangerous info like credit card numbers and banking site passwords - then disapear. You can't hold those people accountable. You can't threaten to stop using their services. You can't even sue them, if you can't find them.

Ideally, we'd be able to find a tool that's entirely trustworthy for routing at malware, but as you said, that's simply not going to happen. That's why I'm generally careful with what I download, but still run a few competing anti-malware apps, just in case I get something borderline one of those products choses not to flag for whatever reason - questionable dealings or simple ignorance of the malware's existence.

Having one more tool at my disposal for IDing spyware, even an imperfect tool, seems like a good thing. How useful it is will depend on what reputation Yahoo/AOL can build for being forthright.