Study: Spyware Alters Web Users

SpinnerSpinner Birmingham, UK
edited July 2005 in Science & Tech
Internet users worried about spyware and adware are shunning specific Web sites, avoiding file-sharing networks, even switching browsers.
"People are scaling back on some Internet activities," said Susannah Fox, the study's main author. "People are feeling less adventurous, less free to do whatever they want to do online."
Submitted by: profdlp

Source: Fox News

Comments

  • SpywareShooterSpywareShooter 127.0.0.1
    edited July 2005
    Hehe... quoted from the article:
    Avi Naider, president of adware company WhenU.com Inc., said he's not surprised.

    Didn't WhenU sue someone (or take them to court, not sure if it went through) for calling them adware? Maybe it was new.net, or maybe both. I'm too tired to get my facts straight right now :p



    And then there are the after-spyware effects. When a user knows they have spyware on their computer but can't remove it then they will not visit some websites they would regularly visit, as they realize that it may generate more popup ads from the piece of adware installed and that the third party behind the spyware can collect data about everything/anything they do or submit on the site. That was how I was anyways when I got my first Trojan and didn't know how to remove it, and it seems like normal behavior to anyone. If you have someone spying on your every move and know it, you're not going to do something that you don't want them to see you do.
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