Family Computing and the Origin of Spyware Infestation
The site promises to deliver some utility you (or an unsuspecting member of your family) might find useful – perhaps it’s a collection of new smiley-faces to be included in chat, perhaps it’s an cartoon engine for creating cutesy avatars… whatever it is, it apparently includes a healthy dose of eyes-glazing-over legalese before it happily installs itself on your system:
Please read carefully. By clicking the button above and downloading Zwinky, I accept and agree to abide by the End User License Agreement.
* Bonus: Also includes Smiley Central™, Cursor Mania™, Popular Screensavers™, the MyWebSearch search box and Search Assistant – relevant search results in response to incorrectly formatted browser address requests.
So, what does Zwinky/MyWebSearch/Smiley Central® do?
Oh, you get lots of fun avatars, icons, and spyware:
Although none of these products claim to be spyware, they do slow your computer down. All of the products use cookies to track usage, although they claim not to use cookies or anything else to track personally identifiable information.
MyWay is a search toolbar that installs into Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, adding search functions and popup blocking. It reports your surfing activity anonymously to MyWay affiliates, helping them to serve targeted advertising to you. As a BHO, MyWay shares the memory that your browser uses, detects events, creates additional windows while you are surfing, and monitors your activity. When a new browser window is opened, MyWay will send a configuration request about 5k in size.
IAC Search and Media (formerly Ask Jeeves, Inc., owner of FunWebProducts.com and a slew of other spyware fronts) is but one of many corporations providing “free” products which exact a hidden cost: your privacy, anonymity, and the performance of your system.
Do you share a machine with anyone gullible enough to download these ostensibly-innocuous applications? Don’t.
