AOL/Weatherbug exception

MS has agreed to stop flagging Weatherbug as spyware
based on pressure from AOL. If Weatherbug is gathering
demographic data without the expressed consent of the
user it should be flagged. If a user is too stupid to
figure out what to ignore and inadvertanly deletes it,
the person should have it removed. MS - if you are
listening, don't bow to pressure to make a good product
weak.

It'd be nice to get this on an objective basis.

There are some pretty good posts about weatherbug in various groups here.

Take a look at Microsofts criteria in this KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892340 Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta)
identifies a program as a spyware threat (Listing criteria and Dispute
process)

and then tell us what Weatherbug is doing that violates them.

Maybe something is missing in the list--although I doubt that Microsoft is
going to change it easily.


"Tom" <tom@tomfranken.com> wrote in message
news:0d5b01c4f8d4$e2a7f5f0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> MS has agreed to stop flagging Weatherbug as spyware
> based on pressure from AOL. If Weatherbug is gathering
> demographic data without the expressed consent of the
> user it should be flagged. If a user is too stupid to
> figure out what to ignore and inadvertanly deletes it,
> the person should have it removed. MS - if you are
> listening, don't bow to pressure to make a good product
> weak.

MS Aspy didn't flag my version of weatherbug. It is a stand alone version not
the one bundled with AIM.

"Tom" <tom@tomfranken.com> wrote in message
news:0d5b01c4f8d4$e2a7f5f0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> MS has agreed to stop flagging Weatherbug as spyware
> based on pressure from AOL. If Weatherbug is gathering
> demographic data without the expressed consent of the
> user it should be flagged. If a user is too stupid to
> figure out what to ignore and inadvertanly deletes it,
> the person should have it removed. MS - if you are
> listening, don't bow to pressure to make a good product
> weak.

Has anyone bothered to see if Ad-aware will detect Weatherbug before jumping
all over MS for not detecting it? Well, I did. I installed Weatherbug last
night after seeing previous posts about it because I wanted to find out for
myself. As the previous posts indicate, MS did not detect any problem other
then it being added to my startup. After checking with MS I then ran
Ad-awareSE Pro and got zero hits. It's not spyware folks. Now, you might
get some hits if you do not opt out of the other stuff that Weatherbug
offer's you, but Weatherbug itself is clean as a whistle.

--

Spider
http://web.tampabay.rr.com/spider1


"DanR" <dan@my-olddeja.com> wrote in message
news:e40K$BQ%23EHA.1176@cpmsftngsa05.privatenews.microsoft.com...
> MS Aspy didn't flag my version of weatherbug. It is a stand alone version
> not
> the one bundled with AIM.
>
> "Tom" <tom@tomfranken.com> wrote in message
> news:0d5b01c4f8d4$e2a7f5f0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
>> MS has agreed to stop flagging Weatherbug as spyware
>> based on pressure from AOL. If Weatherbug is gathering
>> demographic data without the expressed consent of the
>> user it should be flagged. If a user is too stupid to
>> figure out what to ignore and inadvertanly deletes it,
>> the person should have it removed. MS - if you are
>> listening, don't bow to pressure to make a good product
>> weak.
>
>