The morning sessions of the ASC conference in Washington DC were relatively uneventful. FTC Commissioner Deborah Majoras kicked off the conference with a “state of the state” address on the spyware problem, focusing on three key principles:
- The computer is owned by the user not by spyware perpetrators -- or any company for that matter.
- Buried disclosures don’t work.
- The software must be removable.
These are great principles and ones we completely support.
Majoras was also very high on the efforts that industry is putting forth to stop the problem. She highlighted the upcoming TRUSTe certification program for downloadable applications, which will help the industry fix what it started.
An interesting theme at the conference so far has been that “adware” is largely becoming less and less of an issue while spyware is becoming more and more malicious and truly damaging – and is ever-evolving into code that is craftier, harder to detect and more comprehensive in its spying behaviors.
Alex Eckelberry of Sunbelt Software said he’s seen a dramatic reduction in the number of drive-by downloads of software from the “traditional adware players” but – at the same time - he’s also seeing the really nasty stuff proliferate. He attributed this to the effort by “adware” companies to clean up.
Suzi Turner of SpywareWarrior said she’s seeing more and more reports of the really nasty stuff, and fewer reports of “garden variety” adware. I suspect we will see her blog more on this in the future.
More to come from this afternoon’s session…