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Our good friends at Cloudmark (we use their antispam engine in our enterprise product) have a great antiphishing tool (free beta). Click here and look for the Anti-Fraud toolbar. In the future, we will probably put this toolbar into our Dell bundles as a freebie as well. Alex Eckelberry

In keeping with the zeitgeist, the FTC just issued a big report on P2Ps. It is a follow-on from their workshop in December. Briefly: • Consumers face risks when using commercial P2P file-sharing software programs, including risks related to data security, spyware and adware, viruses, copyright infringement, and unwanted pornography. • There was little empirical […]

Earlier we blogged somewhat confusedly about a new “certification” available from an antispyware vendor. This is always scary, it’s memories of WhenU all over again. More data is on the PC Tools site here. Here is the text: “PC Tools certification of software as “spyware free” is subject to the following limitations and disclaimers: The […]

FTC goes after Trustsoft for marketing SpyKiller deceptively. Spykiller is listed on the SpywareWarrior Rogue/Suspect list A visit to their website reveals this message: Click to enlarge The FTC alleges that Trustsoft: • Aggressively and deceptively marketed SpyKiller, using the Web sites of affiliates, banner and pop-up ads, and spam. • Sent pop-up and e-mail […]

Press release here.

eMarketer always does nice high-level overviews of various issues. This latest report from them highlights the spyware issue. Read it here. All materials copyright eMarketer, Inc.

From this article: “In the recent survey, respondents rated critical security threats. The results include viruses and worms, a 7.6 rating (“1” indicated “no concern at all,” while a “10” meant “extremely concerned”); outside hacking or cracking, 7.1; identity theft and phishing, 7.0; spyware, 6.8; denial of services, 6.6; spam, 6.3; wireless and mobile device […]

Incredible writeup by Dave Methvin of PC Pitstop PaperGhost writes on it. By the way, no one here is saying that Bittorent is distributing adware. Bittorent isn’t doing anything. It’s doing what it’s supposed to: Allowing the distribution of files. What the big hullabaloo is over is that network that was fairly pristine has been […]

(See earlier blog if you don’t know about the Bittorent thing.) This is a rather hackneyed argument. It goes like this: “It’s not us, it’s a rogue distributor“. Really? So who pays the “rogue distributor”? It’s not like MetrixMarketing was alone. They work directly with software developers, after all (from their website: “We work with […]

What is it about Fathers and Daughters on the internet? In our family, it is always my Dad who gets all the spyware (my sister hardly gets any). In others, it is Daughters. Here are some examples: – From the Good Morning Silicon Valley Blog: John Paczkowski attributes the following quote to Intel CEO Paul […]