What's the hype about?
While legitimate adware companies will disclose the nature of data that is collected and transmitted in their privacy statement, there is almost no way for the user to actually control what data is being sent. The fact is that the technology is in theory capable of sending much more than just banner statistics - and this is why many people feel uncomfortable with the idea. When was the last time you read a privacy statement on a web site? Millions of people are using advertising supported "spyware" products and could not care less about the privacy hype, in fact some "Spyware" programs are among the most popular downloads on the Internet. Spyware is often bundled with free software and games. There are also many PC surveillance tools that allow the user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from keystroke capture, keyloggers, snapshots, email logging, chat logging and just about everything else. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowledge.
While legitimate adware companies will disclose the nature of data that is collected and transmitted in their privacy statement, there is almost no way for the user to actually control what data is being sent. The fact is that the technology is in theory capable of sending much more than just banner statistics - and this is why many people feel uncomfortable with the idea. When was the last time you read a privacy statement on a web site? Millions of people are using advertising supported "spyware" products and could not care less about the privacy hype, in fact some "Spyware" programs are among the most popular downloads on the Internet. Spyware is often bundled with free software and games. There are also many PC surveillance tools that allow the user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from keystroke capture, keyloggers, snapshots, email logging, chat logging and just about everything else. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowledge.
