Privacy Abuse - Find out who is
threatening your Privacy!
What consumers and web surfers need to know to
protect themselves & their privacy.
Due to the rise in
everyone needs to be concerned about any attempts that might be
made to gather personal information about them, this includes
information that businesses might be collecting!
The plain and simple truth is that is big business and very profitable!
The more information a company or business can gather on it's
customers and clients the more profitable it becomes. Since most
consumers use computers on a daily basis in today's global market
place companies, especially advertising and marketing companies,
have turned to the internet to gather data on what consumers are
interested in.
On the surface, this does not sound like such a terrible thing
and when told many consumers express statements that it really
doesn't matter to them that advertisers might monitor what sites
they visit and accept at face value that companies are simply
gathering general demographics.
Unfortunately, what many consumers on the internet don't seem
to know or understand is that advertisers and marketing companies
are going to greater and greater lengths to gather much more in
depth and detailed of information about what consumers are doing
and buying on line and much of the information that is gathered
is shared or sold to other busiensses.
We have lot's of important information on this site to protect
consumers and their privacy. For more in depth information about
Identity theft and businesses gathering consumer information please
read our information on How to minimize
the risks of Identity theft and How
safe is your personal data?
So, What is Adware?
is that is
a software program or application which is advertising supported
and will supply the user with a variety of different forms of
advertising, most notably banners ads and popup ads. Any software
application in which advertising banners are displayed while the
program is running is considered to be Adware. There are a number
of advertising and marketing firms who will sponsor and/or support
a wide range of web sites and shareware programs & applications
and their developers in exchange of incorporating their advertising
services as part of a software product or web site.
The authors of these applications will then include additional
code inside of the web page or software product which will deliver
ads which can be viewed through pop-up windows or through a bar
that appears on a computer screen. The justification for adware
is that it helps recover programming development cost and helps
to hold down the cost for the user.
Adware - while not necessarily malware, generally goes
beyond the reasonable advertising that one might expect from freeware
or shareware. Typically a separate program that is installed at
the same time as a shareware or similar program, adware will usually
continue to generate advertising even when the user is not running
the originally desired program. See also cookies, spyware, and
web bugs.
that can be downloaded free from the web. Adware will usually
installs components on your computer that will send marketing
information whenever you are online.
Many times, in addition to supplying some form of advertising
to the user of a software product the advertising or marketing
firm will also incorporate additional capabilities to gather information
about the software user and send the information it collects as
data back to themselves or a third party.
Adware has been criticized for including these types of spyware
codes that can track a user's movements and also gather personal
information which is passed it on to third parties, without the
user's authorization or knowledge. This practice has been dubbed
spyware and has prompted an outcry from computer security and
privacy advocates, including the Electronic Privacy Information
Center.
The primary distinction between the Adware
and Spyware is that many times Adware might contain a disclosure
telling you that they will be supplying you with advertising and
passably be using your information for marketing and advertising.
It is important to read the privacy policy when downloading Adware.
However, if it is installed without asking the user or if can
gather detailed information about the user with their full knowledge
and consent it is considered to be Spyware. Another distinction
is that Spyware many time does not produce any advertising at
all.
This means that a software can be Adware and Spyware at the same
time!
More importantly, not all Adware is Spyware and most Spyware
is NOT easily detected by displaying ads. For
more information about what spyware and adware can do click here!
What is Spyware?
. While they
are sometimes sinister, like a remote control program used by
a hacker, software companies have been known to use spyware to
gather data about customers. The practice is generally frowned
upon. Spyware type software can ransmit information back to a
third party without notifying the user.
Noted privacy software expert Steve Gibson of Gibson Research
explains: "Spyware is any software (that) employs a user's
Internet connection in the background (the so-called 'backchannel')
without their knowledge or explicit permission. Silent background
use of an Internet 'backchannel' connection must be preceded by
a complete and truthful disclosure of proposed backchannel usage,
followed by the receipt of explicit, informed consent for such
use. Any software communicating across the Internet absent of
these elements is guilty of information theft and is properly
and rightfully termed: Spyware."
Some privacy advocates also call legitimate access control, filtering,
Internet monitoring, password recovery, security or surveillance
software "Spyware" because it could be used without
notifying the users. However, on this site, we do not make that
distinction.
For
more information about what spyware and adware can do click here!
There are a number of additional issues that consumers and web
surfers need to learn about to protect themselves, their identity
and their privacy while using the Internet. Although the net can
be a wonderfully fun place to explore there are a number of pitfalls
that everyone needs to become aware of. We hope that you will
explore our site to find out additional information on how to
surf the net safely!
Too many people take protecting their on
line privacy and their identity lightly. They assume that
the information that they give out on the net will be kept secure
and safe from abuse. Unfortunately, the opposite appears to the
reality. To understand the limits of consumer privacy rights:
On line
privacy rights.
The average consumer and net user will be shocked at the vast
amounts of highly detailed personal information that is up for
sale about them. Information is gathered from a wide range of
sources including major corporations, on-line advertisers as well
as marketing firms and then sold. This information can and does
fall into the hands of "on-line data brokers" many of
whom will sell to anyone who wants to buy!
What is even more shocking is that currently the
sale of personal information about others is done routinely
and there are not many laws or regulations to limit or restrict
the practice.
This site has been developed to educate consumers so that they
can learn how to protect themselves from unethical advertisers
or companies that might be secretly gathering detailed and personal
information about them.
The good news is that during the past year due to the tremendous
rise of many new laws are being
voted on and discussed. The fate of whether or not these laws
get passed is still uncertain. There are many industries and businesses
fighting to limit and restrict any privacy laws from being passed.
Hopefully, you will help us get these new laws passed after visiting
this site and reviewing the information included. We have even
included links for you to find and contact your state representatives
and express your views and concerns.
In addition to the information contained in this section we hope
that you will explore some of the other sections. We have some
excellent editorial articles as well as legal information and
web master resources.
So with that said, we hope you will enjoy visiting our site.
Do you own or maintain a web site?
-- If you, check out our important information for webmasters
and web site owners!
Special
TopText & Surf+ UpDate 11/02/04
We have discovered that there are Contextual Advertising
Links which look very similar to TopText & Surf+ links
which are legitimate and sponsored by participating web
sites for more information
click here! |
| **
Spyware & Adware Test Scan **
If you are viewing this site with Internet
Explorer and see an alert displayed here then it is an indication
that your computer is infected with one or more spyware
programs that we can scan for. If you do not see any alert
displayed in the center of this notice then our scan did
not detect any of the 122 spyware programs we can scan for,
however, there are still many other programs out there that
we can not yet scan for.
Please note: Currently
we can scan for a 122 distinct spyware programs that can
effect PC users and the alert will only be display if a
specific targeted program is identified. Unfortunately,
we are limited to finding only certain types of spyware
and there are many other forms of spyware and adware that
we can not currently test for.
In addition, our test scan does not
work well with NetScape or other browsers, if you suspect
that you might have spyware on your computer please feel
free to check this page while using Internet Explorer.
Also, if you have a Personal FireWall installed it may
interfere with our ability to scan your computer for Parasite
Adware and Spyware. |
Please take a moment to write to your
congressmen about protecting your privacy and passing stronger
anti-spam laws!
There are number of new laws pending without your support they
will not get passed. Let your congressmen know that we want stronger
privacy protections. For more information see our legal
section.
Please show your support by adding a link back to your site
on our Supporters page and help us raise awareness by displaying
one of our logo banners on your site
