CA slaps spyware label on Kazaa

[nadirah]

Peer-to-peer program Kazaa is the No. 1 spyware threat on the Internet, according to Computer Associates International.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5467539.html

[bigbuck]

Clearly!!!!

[nadirah]

From spywareinfo.com:

Computer Associates, which recently purchased the antispyware company PestPatrol, has released a list of the top spyware applications. In that list is the program Kazaa. While installing Kazaa is an excellent way to infect yourself with all manner of spyware, the program itself certainly is not spyware. What can CA possibly be thinking?

Use of the term "spyware" has gotten out of hand. Some firms are reporting that 97% of all computers are infected with spyware. The trouble is that they are counting cookies as spyware. As reduces its impact ("]I have explained repeatedly[/url], cookies are NOT spyware.

This overuse of the word spyware [url="). When you start referring to cookies as spyware and labeling programs such as Kazaa as spyware, it makes it very hard for people to take the issue seriously.

While the term "spyware" caught the attention of people when Steve Gibson first coined it years ago, I am beginning to wish he had called it something else. For one thing, it doesn't apply to many of the problems lumped under the category of "spyware". CWS may be nasty but it is by no means spyware. I've started calling the software that causes these problems "parasites".

Computer Associates needs to rethink what they are doing. They are causing a headache to all of us involved in this new antispyware industry.

[Jimbob1989]

Are you not suppose to pay for Kazaa lite now where as if you use Kazaa media desktop then its free but you get adware. You can still use kazaa lite for free but I don't know how the law works around it.

Jimbob

[nadirah]

{QUOTE-> Are you not suppose to pay for Kazaa lite now where as if you use Kazaa media desktop then its free but you get adware. You can still use kazaa lite for free but I don't know how the law works around it.

Jimbob <-QUOTE}
I once heard that kazaa lite was an illegal piece of software. Anyway, I don't use any programs like these.

[snapdragin]

Hi guys,

No offence, but since there was already a thread started by Newkid on this subject, I will close this one now so we don't have two threads going at once on the same topic. ;)

For further discussion, please see the thread below:

Kazza, Declared Spyware.. (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=56490)

Regards,

snap