Any software communicating across the Internet absent these elements is guilty of information theft and is properly and rightfully termed Spyware. And the reader has a good point. Spyware, which is built into a number of shareware and freeware applications, is designed to fetch, cache and show ads, and then monitor and report on user behavior without informing users upfront that they will be monitored.
Spyware is definitely to be distrusted in any situation.
When you add to this the fact that the Aureate software has been conclusively found to be directly responsible for significant Windows system and Internet browser crashes, and that it is able to secretly download and cause Windows to execute any arbitrary program into the unsuspecting user's computer, it is indeed difficult to cut these people much slack. And some badly written spyware can cause your PC to crash because of the spyware's poor coding. If you want to find out whether any applications on your PCs have spyware embedded, check out Lavasoft's Web site . Next week, we'll take a closer look at this topic and what Ad-aware can find and correct. Until then, download the program and let us know what you find - we think you'll be horrified.