Kath,

Well I'd prefer not to say what part I play, but I've been close to "spyware" pretty much since day one.

I find that there's a lot of negative hype, a lot of misinformation, a lot of "black helicopter" theories. I'm all for adware companies to fully disclose, blah blah, and not abuse their positions.

I think at this stage most companies are pretty decent about things- you might view things differently.

The debate just reminds me of the eCommerce one- people are largerly afraid to give their credit card information online to a secure site, but are perfectly willing for a waiter at any restaurant or a gas jockey to walk away with it for 10 minutes... just the usual mistrust of the Internet.

On a deeper level- a mistrust of the corporate world in general... university kids who've never gone out and attempted to earn a living yet...

I imagine LimeWire, BearShare, (esp. KaZaA's) cost to operate is huge.. but no one cares- they want freebies.