Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
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.