Ethics: Spyware and Adware

March 26, 2005 6:31 PM

What are your opinions of the ethics of spyware and adware? ..and do you think they play an important role in e-commerce?

Im considering writing a short essay about the ethics of spyware and adware in e-commerce, but im having trouble finding a balanced arguement with all the negativity surrounding the subject. Is it all bad? or are there some positives that are often over looked?

Is it right/wrong (for example), that companies are able to get free market research from online ads, that they would normally have to pay for? is it right/wrong that users are tricked into consenting to install spyware?

posted by lemonfridge to computers & internet (14 comments total)

There may be commercial justifications, but there are no moral justifications. My computer belongs to me. I paid for its processing power and storage space. If someone else uses that power and space in a way that I didn't explicitly authorize, it's every bit as reprehensible as "borrowing" someone's car without telling them.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:40 PM on March 26, 2005

You did explicity authorize it. The fact that you're too lazy to read those contracts you're signing is your own damn fault.

</devil's advocate>
posted by nmiell at 6:45 PM on March 26, 2005

Certainly, nmiell, if there had been a EULA or similar fine print, it would have been my own fault for opening the door. But if there's no disclosure beforehand, surely even the most devilish advocate must see the wrongness of the act.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:50 PM on March 26, 2005

But if there's no disclosure beforehand, surely even the most devilish advocate must see the wrongness of the act.

I think it would be safe to say, having seen most of the spyware out there and how it gets installed, that it's rarely the case that there's no disclosure beforehand.

One positive of spyware that's often overlooked is that it provides companies with an ability to provide a financially free product, such as a P2P app, to the public in exchange for ad companies paying for the costs of providing it. In this sense, it could be seen as a positive.
posted by dflemingdotorg at 7:07 PM on March 26, 2005

I could see the commercial case for spyware (without endorsing it, of course), but the disclosures would have to be clear, up-front, and not buried inside a long and incomprehensible EULA.

Imagine: "Download our Easy Search tool, and all you have to sacrifice is your privacy!"

That'll never happen of course. So the moral case remains pretty clear cut. Spyware companies are taking something from their "customers"--their privacy, and some measure of their computer's performance--that they do not realize that they had negotiated away.

Someday, in the not-so-distant future, threre will be a reckoning. Not with the current Congress, certainly, but the computer age has thrust all kinds of issues upon us that we haven't examined or dealt with yet.
posted by curtm at 7:20 PM on March 26, 2005

dflemingdotorg, what you describe in such glowing terms is adware, which is a not very pleasant but still legitimate way of financing free software, just as ads finance broadcast television. If I want to use good software without paying money for it, then devoting a fraction of my peripheral vision to an advertisement for Pepsi Blue or CoedVoyeurDorm.com is acceptable to me. The advertiser gives money to the software creator in exchange for the remote chance that I will want to give money to the advertiser. I suppose that I can accept this because the advertiser fronts the money and absorbs the risk. Data miners and other sneakily installed software, on the other hand-- that's not borrowing my brain, which is free. It's borrowing my computer, which I paid money for.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:37 PM on March 26, 2005

do you think they play an important role in e-commerce

While I personally think they do not, I also think that polling Metafilter members isn't going to get you anything resembling a good answer. You might want to look elsewhere, for example, this August 2004 article in Internet Retailer on adware and spyware.
posted by WestCoaster at 9:01 PM on March 26, 2005

They play an important role in encouraging people to distrust e-commerce and computers in general. I guess that could be a good thing, sometimes.
posted by sfenders at 9:26 PM on March 26, 2005

The reason you're having trouble finding "positives" is that there are indeed very few.

"Fair" and "balanced" should never have been yoked together. Frequently, the best we can do to provide an objective or fair view will be unbalanced, as far as pros and cons go. There may indeed be two (or more) sides to every question, but we are not required to abstain from judging one to have the right of it.

You say you're writing about ethics. You need to be very wary about mixing up prudential with ethical considerations. For example, you wonder whether it is good that companies can get research data for free. Unless you are a strict utilitarian, this is virtually irrelevant - and if you are a strict utilitarian, we would want to know more about how others were harmed (or not) in gathering this data. A little basic reading in this area, like a first-year philosophy/ethics text, would do no harm.

Personally, I'm comfortable that spyware and adware are installed through deception, which alone puts them in the wrong. Their role in e-commerce can only be detrimental, in the same way that cheats in any marketplace reduce trust and impose new costs on participants.

By the way, when is your essay due? Because I feel very much like I'm helping with your homework.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:12 PM on March 26, 2005

If I want to use good software without paying money for it, then devoting a fraction of my peripheral vision to an advertisement for Pepsi Blue or CoedVoyeurDorm.com is acceptable to me....
Agreed. But I'm damned if it's ethical the way they the notification of it is hidden away in the humungous EULA's. I for one would like to see some legislation forcing more prominent advice that a program contains adware and setting out how they will manifest.

Spyware's never ethical methinks.
posted by peacay at 5:48 AM on March 27, 2005

Whether spyware/adware are ethically permissible depends entirely on what you think the rights and/or responsibilities of the parties in question are.

I don't acknowledge a privately owned, for-profit business's right to exist (not automatically, anyway; in some cases, you could probably justify it), so as far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't have any rights and pretty much everything they do is ethically unacceptable.

But if you see it differently - if you think businesses have a right to exist - okay, then, cool. What gives them this right? The fact that they serve a function or provide a service? If so, then if a business ceases to provide a useful service, does it then lose all its rights? Or maybe businesses have a right to exist simply because people have a right to do whatever they like with their property and money, including seeking a profit. In that case, does someone have the right to start a business that sells crystal meth to children? (Might be profitable!). If there are ethical limits to the pursuit of profit, what are they? Where do they come from?

Similar questions apply to the computer user, the guy who's subjected to the spyware and adware. What are his rights? Why does he have them / how did he get them? Does he have the right to control his computer absolutely and completely? He can't control his car or his house one hundred percent; why should his computer be different? Why should he have any right at all to not see advertising? He's a member of this society, isn't he? Isn't he obligated to participate in commerce? He knows advertising exists out in the real world. If he didn't want to see any, he could just stay home and turn off the tv and the puter, right?

faint of butt says: Data miners and other sneakily installed software, on the other hand-- that's not borrowing my brain, which is free. It's borrowing my computer, which I paid money for.

Well, is this true? Does ownership of a piece of property give you rights that being a human being doesn't? Does someone who owns a computer have more right to his/her privacy than does a homeless man who owns essentially nothing? Is advertising to one more ethically acceptable than advertising to the other?

If you're going to tackle the question you outlined, I think that this is where you have to start.
posted by Clay201 at 7:41 AM on March 27, 2005

there was a news item somewhere recently (bbc? adrants?) saying that a depressingly large fraction of people bought from spam. if you found the source of the news (some survey, i would guess), it might also mention adware.
posted by andrew cooke at 8:56 AM on March 27, 2005

I think it will help to define your terms.

..Tracking cookies get tagged by spybot. Since they are easily deleted, they don't worry me too much.
..Adware delivers extra popups
..Spyware tracks your surfing and possibly more
..Malware takes over your start page and other nasty things
.."Driveby" installs software when you visit a page, if you have activex enabled
This is a quick list & there are lots of permutations.

..Ethical software has to be installed with informed consent.
..Some ad/malware has an intentionally deceptive install screen.
..Some free software packages have a 3 line, 40 character-wide window to display a 12 page 10 point type Word document. That's not valid consent.
..Ethical software has a working uninstall capability.
..Some malware changes network settings and may break TCP/IP and anti-virus software. They often exploit security weaknesses in IE, and create more.
..When my 80 year old mom gets a popup that says her pc is in danger and she should click a dialog box that looks just like a Windows error message, that's not informed consent.

To do your homework well, enable popups and use IE to surf. Install and document the junkware you get offered. You can use Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C to copy all in the tiny EULA window and paste into a Word doc. You may have to rebuild your machine afterwards, so backup 1st.

One thing that helped Google take off was the honesty of its ads - no deception, no paid search placement. Ads are clearly defined. Advertisers report that google ads work. I won't click on ads that I find deceptive. I will click on banner ads and text box ads that have useful content.

Most popup web ads want to beat me over the head 20 times with annoying information. When the information is of no use, like a Cadillac Escalade ad (I find them criminally ugly) I avoid that page until a new ad is posted. If the ad is well done, I'll watch it once or twice. If it's useful or interesting, I'll click.
posted by theora55 at 2:08 PM on March 28, 2005

It would be possible for there to be spyware which I found acceptable to have on my machine. Currently, spyware operates in ways not condusive to this.

Badly written programs that unnecessarily hog resources are out.
Programs that do not uninstall properly, or intentially try to hook themselves into the system destroy people's computers. The solution would be to add the spyware as a function of the host program, rather than install it as a seperate secretive program. I stop using (uninstall) the host, the spyware dissappears at the same time. That's fair.
Lack of full and obvious disclosure, or even better, being able to taylor the information it spys. (Eg, you have 8 check boxes, for things like websites visited, browser used, pop-up ads, etc. all might be checked by default, but the user can uncheck any of concern to them, with the requirement that at least 3 must be checked for installation of the host program to proceed.

Spyware doesn't need to be an obnoxious weed that destroys people's computer. Writing spyware so badly (or so well) that it eventually renders people's computers unusable simply cannot be justified, not by e-commerce or anything else. User friendly spyware on the other hand, that is up-front about "You can use this software free if you accept our advertising" or "choose between 30 day demo, full version for $30, or full version free supported by ads and info collection", that's both ethical, and helps e-commerce.

Putting the information in a EULA, and then putting the 10,000 word EULA in a miniature 3-line window that cannot be resized to read properly, and then hiding and obfuscating the information in an unknown language (legalese), is not disclosure. It's ass-covering. Big difference.

At the end of the day, e-commerce, like all commerce, is merely a means to an end, not and end of itself, and that end is a better quality of life. Ruined computers create a far greater stress and diminishment of quality of life than a few programs being a little bit cheaper. Therefore, e-commerce doesn't (and cannot) justify many of the current spyware practises.
posted by -harlequin- at 2:17 PM on March 28, 2005