"No-one has any right to install software on someone else's PC unless they have agreed to the installation."

I'm pretty sure that if you download and run an executable, you've implicitly given permission for the software to run. Their software doesn't install anything, and has no effect after you quit it, so I don't see what there is to complain about.

"One assumes they have registered with the Data Protection Registrar or the equivalent in their country as they are storing personal information about 'users' on a central server? If not a server under there control, does the company who owns the server have the necessary registration? Again, if not then potentially the law is being broken."

They're not capturing any personally identifiable data, just the IP addresses of the machines running their software. If this requires permission from a "Data Protection Registrar" then so does anyone running a web server, file server, etc., not to mention any p2p network. I'd be hard pressed to name any networked service that doesn't know the IP address of the people that use it...

"And by the way, why are they themselves using file sharing software anyway? I think it highly unlikely they are only using it for legitimate file swapping. Have they ever swapped any copyrighted music files?!"

This is a huge leap. If someone is motivated enough to write software to track the spread of software piracy tools on the p2p networks, and report on it publicly (which is bound to get them flamed) why would you assume that they're pirates?

"The word 'hypocrisy' springs to mind!"

You're making huge unfounded assumptions, then attacking these guys. Cut it out!

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/8279/25443#25443