Howes’ Recap on Spyware/Adware

Eric L. Howes gives a one-year retrospective of the state of spyware/adware. I was surprised that he was able to find any good news from his perspective, but he did! Of course, I would probably reverse some of his labels (i.e., some of his “good news” is bad news from my perspective, and vice versa), but it’s an interesting recap from any perspective.

Thanks to Spyware Warrior for the tip.

UPDATE: I got an email asking me to explain my “vice-versa” remark (what bad news on Eric’s list would have been good news on my list?). Here’s how I responded:

“I’d reverse the listing of VC funding of adware companies. This is good news in my book, but I know that opinion is not shared universally. FTC deference is also good news, but I’d rate that as more of a mixed bag (we want them to clean up the real bad guys but I want them to leave others alone). I would also characterize industry practices as improving–maybe not fast enough, certainly not substantively enough to satisfy you–but I think we could find good news here as well.

In any case, the core deficiency in Eric’s analysis is a common one–we still don’t have bright line rules distinguishing malware, spyware, adware and garden-variety software, and without that, it’s impossible to make a uniformly-acceptable list of good or bad news.”