The phenomenal rise of the internet has created a massive global industry with many thousands of spin-off cottage-style industries tagging along for the ride. Business is booming and many, many people have made an awful lot of money from it. In addition to this are the many thousands of ordinary people who now make a comfortable living from the internet. Everything would be fine and dandy, except for the unfortunate fact that wherever a large group of people can found making money at something, a small group will always be close behind leeching off them. These are the scam artists, spammers and get-rich-off-the-back-of-others-quick merchants. Between them they have created more problems for honest business people than any other online influence.
One of the more recent annoyances has been the sharp rise in so-called spyware.
Shock
What followed could only be described as either a mad panic, or a cleverly crafted get rich scheme which has worked a treat! The doom-mongers and conspiracy theorists between them managed to spread so much fear about possible personal data theft and "Big Brother" watching people's every keyboard click, that people were ready to clutch at the first thing that came along that promised it would protect them from this evil scourge. Enter the skilful programmer set and before too long anti-spyware software had been developed to combat this affront to people's privacy and the even more skilful marketers were selling these new anti-spyware programs to all and sundry.
Anti-spyware programs were selling like hot cakes.
So let's look past the hype and scaremongering and take a step back for a moment. Take a deep breath. That's good.
Now we can ask a very pertinent question. What exactly is spyware and do we really need to be so worried about it? More to the point, do we really need yet another piece of software in the form of anti-spyware eating up our CPU's runtime to protect us from something we know very little about?
Let's take the first question first: "What is spyware?"
Let's give as concise an answer as is necessary in order to understand what spyware basically is. Well, firstly, spyware comes in many forms. The more simple forms are cookies set by websites to save you having to enter details like your user name or log-in details every time you visit a site. More sophisticated cookies can track your surfing movements and can be very useful for affiliate marketers by keeping track of links you may have clicked on. These are very important if you buy a product online that you were directed to by a trusted affiliate, as that is how the vendor knows who to pay the commission to. Incidentally, by blocking these cookies using anti-spyware software, your trusted affiliate will lose their commission because the vendors will not know who sent you to their website. That commission is then kept by the vendor. You don't get a discount!
More sinister forms of spyware also exist in the form of keystroke tracking software that can actually track every keyboard entry you make. This information is gathered by massive servers and decoded for use by the criminal underworld, by which means they can learn personal details like your home address, social security number, online banking login details, passwords etc. This type of spyware is more suited to the term Trojan horse, which is used to describe certain information gathering software inaccurately labelled as a virus.
So do we need to be so worried about spyware?
Yes and no.
Yes if one of the Trojan varieties is contracted, as there is the risk of personal data being harvested by the criminal fraternity. This data could potentially be used for all manner of illegalities, not the least of someone stealing money from an online bank account, or committing other fraudulent crimes using someone's data.
No if you there are a few, or even a lot of cookies sitting benignly on the hard drive making your internet surfing activities a little easier by saving you having to key in certain repetitive information every time you visit a website.
Is there an in-between?
Life is not all in black and white and neither is the question of the severity of spyware. Of course there is a grey area that lies in-between the simple benign cookies and the aggressively malignant Trojans or actual data-threatening viruses. Some sophisticated cookies are able to track your surfing and online shopping habits and relay that information back to advertisers and the like so they can better initiate their next effective advertising campaigns. Campaigns that are directed right back at you, the consumer. Naturally, they want to know where you surf and shop most often so they can tailor their advertising to maximize their profits.
Is that ethical?
Well, maybe or maybe not, but that's business!
Is it an invasion of privacy?
Yes.
Is it malevolent, sinister or dishonest?
Well, no more or less so than that supermarket loyalty card that you carry around with you. Think about it. If you were truly concerned about "Big Brother" watching your shopping habits, just think about how much personal information is harvested from you every time your card is swiped at the checkout!
So that brings us to our last question: "Do we really need anti-spyware software running on our computer at home?"
Now, savvy Linux users are rarely bothered by this problem and Mac users are also less likely targets for malicious software attacks. So this question is really directed at Windows users and let's face it, the vast majority of people online are.
Taking the worst case scenario, that of contracting a Trojan or virus, you would be right to be concerned enough to ensure that you have anti-spyware software running to block them gaining access to your hard drive. But look again at your task-bar. What's that little icon over there in the right corner? That's right! It's your anti-virus program humming quietly away in the corner there! You do have anti-virus software running on your internet-connected computer, don't you?
Anti-virus software is there in order to take care of all the malicious insurgents, including Trojans and the like, so it that respect, it acts as anti-spyware too. So what about the other, less harmful stuff? Those benign cookies, for example, which sit there in order to make your surfing experience a little less difficult. It is true that many anti-spyware programs will block cookies from being set on your computer, in the name of protecting you from spyware.
But you can just as easily block cookies using your own browser settings for free.
So why exactly do you need to spend more money on anti-spyware software that has been created in response to scaremongering and propaganda tactics? Why indeed, especially when the tools to do the same job are already sitting there in front of you.
Shock Report - Do You Really Need That Anti-Spyware Software? Shock
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