Stomp Out Dragware?

I was pleased to read earlier this year that Utah had passed a law explicitly criminalizing spyware. Although that law is currently on hold, perhaps it’s time for the US federal government to consider such a directive. (And consider the side benefits: The more time Congress spends debating Internet laws, the less time it has to discuss Internet sales tax. But that’s an issue for another day.)

I doubt I’ll get much argument from readers when I say that our computers have become cluttered over the past few years. For the first time in my 30 years in computing, I’m hearing the same refrain from friends, family, and neighbors: “My system has started to run really slowly.” A quick look at the local sources of autostart programs —win.ini, the Startup folder, and the nearly two dozen registry keys that contain instructions to start programs—often shows casino junk, spyware such as Gator, and other automatic programs that the users never asked for but got while installing legitimate applications. The last category includes programs such as realsched.exe, which RealNetworks installs on your system when you install RealPlayer. I find it irritating that just because I occasionally—very occasionally—need RealPlayer, Real thinks it’s okay to automatically load a program that potentially steals network, RAM, and CPU resources every time I use my computer. . . .