Can You Trust Your Spyware Protection?

[hellscream666]

The next time you run a scan with your anti-spyware tool, it might miss some programs. Several anti-spyware firms, including Aluria, Lavasoft, and PestPatrol, have quietly stopped detecting adware from companies like Claria and WhenU--a process called delisting. Those adware companies have been petitioning anti-spyware firms to delist their software; other companies have resorted to sending cease-and-desist letters that threaten legal action.
In most cases it's difficult for customers to determine whether their anti-spyware tool has delisted anything and, if so, which adware it skips.

"When a spyware program gets delisted, users won't be aware of its presence," says Harvard law student and spyware researcher Ben Edelman. The practice, he says, "offers spyware makers a new lease on life, letting them keep users who otherwise would have removed their software."
Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/pcworld/20050531/tc_pcworld/120914

Seriously are they trying to joke? in the name of protection?

 

[it_waaznt_me]

Hmm.. Earlier Opera and DAP were also listed as adwares as they are adwares .. While the spyware softwares are used to detect malwares .. ie those softwares that gets installed without your knowledge or accent .. But since Opera is a legitimate program that tells you it will show ads if you want to use freeware version, its not cheating .. So delisting isnt such evil as your are considering ...

Now to Claria .. Claria was earlier Gator .. Its just a backend to display ads on a user's computer .. it can be used as an ad client by many softwares .. Earlier most softwares that used Gator to display ads were rogue .. Now after it was acquired and renamed Claria it has become an ad client which tells the users what they are going to install and it isnt such hard to remove too ..