Advice to spyware authors: Write your code so that if the user uninstalls your information gathering/disseminating garbage it also removes whatever goodies you lured them in with in the first place.

Advice to anti-spyware authors: Write your code to be a software uninstaller and market it as such. Offer to inspect ALL programs installed on the computer. Then explain what each program does. Have a central database if you choose. Then ask the user if they want any of the programs removed.

If either party writes code that goes beyond these guidelines, that is if a spyware author has goodies that don't get deleted when his program gets removed or if an antispyware author writes code that summarily deletes anything without explaining what it was, there is no recourse. The spyware author can't sue. The anti-spyware author can be sued.

As users, we still have the choice as to what we have installed on our computer. I have the right to install or uninstall any legal software that I choose. I can write zeroes to my hard disk if I want. Any reasonable court would never rule that there is any contract between the user and the spyware author. A clear line of definition would help to keep the unreasonable courts and the ridiculous lawyers that pick up the ridiculous cases out of the picture.

Now go out there and have a good Mad magazine style Spy vs. Spy bout.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/328/31958#31958