Google, Sun Head Up Internet “Neighborhood Watch”
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Written By Reprise Media | January 25, 2006 | Share This
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Look out, spyware! Google, Sun Microsystems and Lenovo are teaming up to…tell on you.
Stopbadware.org is their new initiative to help combat “badware,” as they call it, which includes adware, spyware, malware, and any other ‘ware that “fundamentally disregards a user’s choice over how his or her computer will be used,” according to their FAQ. Essentially they aim to be an information clearinghouse that will catalogue known internet naughtiness and educate consumers as to the potentially malicious effects of these online bad-doers. The big corporations will provide funding and support (along with “special advisor” consumerwebwatch.org), while the big brains at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center and Oxford’s Internet Institute will do the bulk of the heavy lifting.
But the Stop Badware Coalition isn’t the first multi-corporation anti-spyware coalition; that honor belongs to the Anti-Spyware Coalition, led by AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft and McAfee. You may have seen the Ars Technica story earlier this year detailing that organization’s commitment to providing exacting spyware definitions and “anti-spyware safety tips.” Aching to locate a difference between the two? Stop Badware’s FAQ hints that their ties with academic institutions might free them from corporate or political entanglements that may or may not hinder the “competition” (also pointed out by Ars Technica”) Meanwhile, the poo poo-ers at Threadwatch are advising Google to mind its own business, pointing to Google Toolbar, Google Earth and Google Desktop Search and asking “After all - are these applications ‘not’ spyware?”
Now if you’re seeking a more muscular anti-spyware alternative to the public shame approach, look no further than Washington State. Their 2005 Computer Spyware Act allows companies adversely affected by spyware to sue the pants off the perpetrators. First up: Secure Computer, a New York company that offered software claiming to root out spyware, then actually made computers “even more vulnerable to attacks.” Read about it here.
Topics: Legal Issues |