The reason spyware exists is that shareware authors needed to find a way to make money from their products without actually have to sell the product to the user; hence the term "shareware". To monetize their products, a shareware producer might allow banner ads to be placed in the product. When users click those banner ads, the shareware developer would receive a slice of the revenue. This is so common that there are large media companies that will broker this deals. For users that don't want to see the banner ads, there is normally an option to buy the shareware and that will turn off the adds.
When spyware is installed on your computer, it monitors user activity on the Internet, and then it sends this information in the background to someone else. The more malicious forms of spyware can even collect email addresses, passwords, and credit card numbers. This would be a prime example of the keystroke logger that I eluded to earlier.
Why is it called "Spyware"?
As the name suggest, the goal of the software is to spy on user activity. In fact, you could say that spyware is similar to a trojan horse. A user downloads and installs some software that does one thing, while in the background, additional software is installed that does something (spying) else. Probably the most common way to become a spyware victim is to use peer-to-peer file sharing products that are freely available today.
Resources such as memory, CPU, and the swap file, are not unlimited resources, and as such, the more applications that are running, the slower the computer is going to be. When a user downloads an application with spyware in it, they are unknowingly installing additional applications that will run continuously in the background. Install enough applications, and eventually, your computer will be so bogged down, it will hardly function.
Despite what the name suggests, Spyware is not illegal software. There are some pretty grey areas, however. For example, users may object to having their activity monitored. They would for sure object to having their passwords and credit card numbers collected. Because of that, spyware is pretty immoral.
To comply with the law, adware companies will have disclosure statements that tell you exactly what type of data is collected and transmitted. However, there is virtually not way for a user to actually control what data is being sent. This is why many people are so bothered by spyware.
Putting those issues aside, however, there is also a benefit. Millions of people are using free software applications that they would otherwise have to pay for.
Is it right or wrong? You be the judge.
If you are like most and would prefer to keep your computer free of spyware, you will need to install security software that will protect you and remove any installed applications. One very populare program is Kaspersky Internet Security 2009.
Author: Todd Anthony
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Article source: Free Security Articles.
