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

Is this the shape of things to come?

[ZachPruckowski]

In short, this is the tip of the iceberg. We're probably going to see this a lot more, with companies doing unethical things and not getting put on spyware/adware/malware list. Like the $sys$rootkit, for example, or Google's 33 year cookie. The problem with having watchers (anti-malware industry) that are private companies is, of course, "who watches the Watchers?"

Wrong question.

[kawika]

What you should be asking is, "What useful purpose does this software serve?" If it's not doing anything useful for you, the user and owner of the computer, then teminate it. Why have it use up memory and disk space for no reason?

Not spyware, but...

[showardkid]

it's definitely scumware. Think about it. It's tough to remove, it's installed either sneakily or as a component of something else, and now they want it to serve ads. If they're so convinced they're not spyware, they can make their product easily removable. Provide an uninstaller, or leave instructions for manual removal if they're too damn lazy.

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.

NO

[Michael Tzez]

How dare you pricks call Viewpoint spyware! They have every right to know anything about you that they can discover. It seems a bit shady that you wouldn't want them to know something about you. What are you trying to hide, anyway?

And so what if it's not easily uninstallable? Who are you to prevent them from doing what they want with your computer or any information they discover or infer from its use? What right do you have to tamper with their software just because it happens to reside on your computer? That's their intellectual property!

You freely choose to install Viewpoint's software without your knowledge or consent when you don't read the license you agree to when you install AIM. How is that deceptive or even Viewpoint's fault?

Also, What's wrong with being bombarded with an unstoppable tsunami of advertisements? How else will you know about all the valuable offers that are waiting just for you!

Wordplay

[grudgelord]

Perhaps, by their convoluted definition it is not spyware but it is malware no matter how you slice it.

As one other poster mentioned, this is the genesis of trend. No doubt we will see more of this sort of thing. The spyware, adware, demographic, data mining industry has replaced (grown out of?) the dot-com collapse and the American consumer is left with herds of digital predators with a singular interest: "take the consumer's money".

It's long been a popular practice for anything sales to tread the slippery slope of both ethics and the law. Spam distributors began creating "subscription newsletters", so its not "spam" anymore. Telemarketing firms and "outside" sales groups no longer "employ" to fill "jobs" but instead offer "opportunities" (as independent contractors so they can evade employment law, a practice I've seen put to shady use countless times). Telemarketers no longer interrupt dinner with a "cold call", they interrupt dinner with a call only to "parties who've expressed an interest", despite the fact that the customer wasn't made aware that they were putting themselves on a list when they filled out that survey at the mall. You can get a free vacation, iPod, dildo, pony, etc... no purchase necessary, as long as you commit to spend the equivalent of the national deficit on some shady promotional hotel package or subscribe to 300 crap-ass magazines owned by a conservative publishing house. I recall once hearing a sales manager tell a group of door-to-doors, "I don't care if you have to knock them down and take their wallet, just get their money". The corporate clowns in the leather chairs promote this behavior. Managers encourage, or even require, "sales associates" to hardsell extended warranties for electronics products. Telemarketers and door-to-door vermin are driven and even threatened to push to the very borders of harassment. The oil companies increase the gas prices to "cover the cost of gasoline reformulation" which reduces gas mileage, further increasing cost...But I digress.

These companies will manipulate any small detail to be able to say, "It's not spyware", and rest assured, their lawyers have pulled all-nighters splitting the hairs to ensure that this is a "legal" statement. And in legalize it may be true, but legalize != reality.

In the end I guess it's the physics of bullshit. It's all spin. Hell, it's also up and down and goddamn strange, but it completely lacks beauty or charm. (Yea, I know I left out top and bottom but I couldn't think of a witty BDSM reference to justify them).