3 ms·

Indeed it sounds hypocritical to state "Google and TAG will continue to take action against, and publish research about, the commercial spyware industry.", whi

by adg001 4y ago

Indeed it sounds hypocritical to state "Google and TAG will continue to take action against, and publish research about, the commercial spyware industry.", while not including Google itself in the said industry.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
It does smell like an attempt to redefine "spyware" to mean a subset of "cyber crime", instead of its original meaning, which now covers most of "legitimate" adtech and software telemetry.
- aew4ytasghe5 4y ago
  It sounds to me like you insist that "spyware" has a different meaning than the majority in this thread. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware#History: > The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on October 16, 1995 in a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. Spyware at first denoted software meant for espionage purposes.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    I'm insisting it has the meaning that... the entire Wikipedia article you linked uses. You quoted the beginning of the first paragraph of the History section, but the full paragraph reads: > The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on October 16, 1995 in a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. Spyware at first denoted software meant for espionage purposes. However, in early 2000 the founder of Zone Labs, Gregor Freund, used the term in a press release for the ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall. Later in 2000, a parent using ZoneAlarm was alerted to the fact that Reader Rabbit, educational software marketed to children by the Mattel toy company, was surreptitiously sending data back to Mattel. Since then, "spyware" has taken on its present sense. I wasn't aware of the earlier, truly original meaning - actual espionage. That doesn't change the fact that for the past 20+ years, the common meaning - dare I say, original mainstream one - encompassed every kind of hidden tracking, data collection and exfiltration, almost none of it being part of actual espionage, but rather most of it being in service of targeting ads.

by adg001 4y ago

TeMPOraL 4y ago

It does smell like an attempt to redefine "spyware" to mean a subset of "cyber crime", instead of its original meaning, which now covers most of "legitimate" adtech and software telemetry.

aew4ytasghe5 4y ago
It sounds to me like you insist that "spyware" has a different meaning than the majority in this thread. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware#History: > The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on October 16, 1995 in a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. Spyware at first denoted software meant for espionage purposes.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  I'm insisting it has the meaning that... the entire Wikipedia article you linked uses. You quoted the beginning of the first paragraph of the History section, but the full paragraph reads: > The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on October 16, 1995 in a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. Spyware at first denoted software meant for espionage purposes. However, in early 2000 the founder of Zone Labs, Gregor Freund, used the term in a press release for the ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall. Later in 2000, a parent using ZoneAlarm was alerted to the fact that Reader Rabbit, educational software marketed to children by the Mattel toy company, was surreptitiously sending data back to Mattel. Since then, "spyware" has taken on its present sense. I wasn't aware of the earlier, truly original meaning - actual espionage. That doesn't change the fact that for the past 20+ years, the common meaning - dare I say, original mainstream one - encompassed every kind of hidden tracking, data collection and exfiltration, almost none of it being part of actual espionage, but rather most of it being in service of targeting ads.