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."