It might be called “The Spy Who Came in from the Code,” and the latest Internet privacy flap would surely give novelist John Le Carre a run for his plotline.
In recent months, a new breed of advertisement-laden software has drawn scrutiny from security analysts and consumer advocates.
Spyware, as it has become known, is an application that can be installed on your hard disk when you download shareware, freeware or code snippets such as game demos.
Some say it contains sneaky features that can “call home” on Net-connected computers to deliver all sorts of information about users.
“The real issue is to what extent do people have control of information flowing out of their computers,” said Lauren Weinstein, co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility. “In a legal sense, they have none right now.”
Software companies and their associates, meanwhile, have fought furiously against any hint of wrongdoing. They call their programs adware and say the data they bring back from personal computers have been grossly misunderstood.
“We don’t do any of the things folks are concerned about at the moment–tracking what they’re using or seeing online,” Bob Regular, marketing director for adware maker Conducent, insisted in a communication with InternetNews.com recently.
“We don’t have the capability to do that, and that’s not the data we stream back,” he said.
Those corporate assurances have not placated concerned consumers. Hundreds of free software titles–including RealDownload, Netscape’s AOL Smart Download, Qualcomm’s free version of the Eudora mailer and NetZip’s Download Demon–now include advertising within program windows.
In many cases, security analysts using sophisticated “sniffers” and other tools have been unable to identify exactly what’s being sent out by the programs because it is encrypted.
Encryption is great if they are trading sensitive personal information about users, say privacy groups, but who gave them permission to transmit anything in the first place?
The arguments have flown across the Internet in rapid-fire succession since February.
Consumers are told about the transmissions in privacy statements, say software company officials.
Those statements are often vague, hidden or may be couched in complex legalese, say privacy groups.
Software companies say it is benign data used only to set up advertising within the program windows. Privacy groups counter that if it’s no big deal, why not allow outside scrutiny of its use?
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Puzzled consumers are caught in the middle, and many are not happy.
Phil Dowd, an Indiana small-business owner, has publicized a letter he wrote the makers of Go!zilla, a free download utility that critics say can catalog a user’s Net activity.
“Your program is free, but my computer information is not,” Dowd wrote. “It is free to look in my bedroom window at night, but it is not appropriate.”