rotas»sator

Many people ask, “why would anyone in their right mind distribute spyware?” The “right mind” part is up for grabs, but the overall question can pretty much be answered in one word.

Money.

An article in The Register last week quotes quite staggering figures for how much money is being made out of infesting the internet with slimeware.

Adware infections net the purveyors of slimeware software around $3 a year for each infected PC, according to estimates from anti-spyware firm Webroot Software. Using this figure and stats from its own malware auditing services, Webroot guesstimates the illicit advertising market underpinned by adware infection of home and business PCs could be worth up to $1.6bn a year. Adware-infected PCs net slimeware firms $3 a pop — John Leyden

While the figures used are only estimates, we are talking about big-league money here. In this black, slimy market, legality or morality are things left discarded in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar (or pound, ruble, euro, etc…).

Unfortunately, as long as there are advertisers who don’t care about how their products are pushed, there will be others partnering with them who have no qualms about preying on the vulnerable.

And hopefully there’ll always be others who trying to fight the good fight.

Blessings, Steve

[Listening to Audioslave, Audioslave — Gasoline]