Viewpoint - A Spyware and Astroturfing Debate?

Spazntwich wonders: "Lately, the Viewpoint Corporation has gained attention by being the subject of many debates on whether or not it spreads spyware. Of special interest is its media player which is installed by default with all recent versions of AIM, as a 'required' component. Its difficulty of successful un-installation coupled with its generally suspicious nature of installation and tendency to 'phone home' have drawn many accusations of spyware, but Viewpoint maintains otherwise. They feel so strongly about this that they've even managed to get their software removed from the spyware lists of SpyBot and other anti-spyware vendors, though nobody seems to know whether this was done voluntarily by the vendors or under threat of litigation. Viewpoint claims a strong anti-spyware policy on their site." Is Viewpoint spyware or not, and what have your experiences been with it? "Of special interest as of late are Viewpoint's apparent plans to begin serving ads through their media player and an astroturfing campaign that can only be described as aggressive and obvious, which you can see demonstrated in the comments of several previously linked articles as well in a discussion on SearchEngine Journal and a discussion thread on AskLeo. A favorite pseudonym of the campaign(ers?) seems to be Michael Tzez, and googling the name demonstrates just how extensive a campaign the company is waging.

I'm curious as to the Slashdot community's thoughts on this."

Comments

Re:Code ANalysis says otherwise

[Deathlizard]

My experience with it on Student PC's will make be vote spyware and at the absolute very least, Adware.

Anything that pops up graphical thumbnail suggestions for other competing products when I'm looking at a particular product looks like adware to me. Phoning Home sounds like Spyware to me.

Errr, what?

[Otter]

A favorite pseudonym of the campaign(ers?) seems to be Michael Tzez...

Sorry, I've missed the part where you back up that assertion except by linking to a bunch of your 1337 friends saying the same thing. According to your Google results, the guy seems to exist, and while he might be a bit too excited over Viewpoint, it doesn't seem like he's alone in that.

And what kind of stupid astroturf campaign would have multiple people pretending to be a single goofball?