What is Spyware/Malware?
Spyware, also known as “malware”, “scumware”, and less-complimentary names, is most commonly software that monitors your computing activities and reports those activities back to a central server. Many spyware programs track your web-browsing activities for advertising purposes. For example, if you’re looking at a lot of web pages from car companies, the spyware might feed you a pop-up ad from an auto dealer. Besides the obvious privacy issues involved in tracking your web activities, spyware presents ethical problems from a business standpoint. A business which has invested time and money to create a web presence is not likely to appreciate a competitor’s ad popping up every time a user views its site. Some spyware pastes its own banner ads over existing ads on a web page. Other spyware adds new hyperlinks to web pages. These links could be confused with legitimate links put in by the web page owner. Spyware can harm a web site financially (through lost advertising revenue) and could
