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Symantec And Hotbar Love Fest
John Stith
Staff Writer
2006-03-06
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Mega-security software firm Symantec is tangling with marketing company Hotbar in a legal settlement defining Hotbar as "low-risk" adware. The settlement comes from a lawsuit filed by Symantec back in June to get a ruling supporting their position that Hotbar's programs that Hotbar software is adware.
There are different thoughts on where exactly this leave the future of adware however as Ben Edelman pointed in InformationWeek. He told the magazine, "If I was an IT guy paying Symantec to defend my computers, I'd ask 'what are we paying them for, I still see Hotbar on a user's computer,'" said Edelman. "Something's gone wrong at Symantec."
The biggest problem with this whole mess is the fact that no hard, fast definitions exist of adware exactly. Hotbar founder Oren Dovronsky pointed out in UPI article, "Indeed, there is a great confusion of concepts. It's not all clear what adware is. If it's a program that presents advertisement, then there are a lot of programs that need to be included in that category, including MSN Messenger."
While people are becoming more aware of adware, the problem does exist of what actually defines adware. It essentially does target marketing based on a monitoring the behaviors patterns of a person's internet experience and habits. In most cases, the users are unaware their behavior is being monitored so closely. The argument could probably be made however against email with ads in them or various clients for chat or some other desktop feature. But no one would think of cutting out one of the big companies and accusing them of using adware would they.
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About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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