On 02/27/03 9:32am you wrote... > >>>I'll trust you on that, and apologize for the roundhouse >>>classification. Yet in your "several dozen cases where divorces were >>>contemplated, employee terminations took place, even people who were >>>sent back to prison" and "kids who have been grounded" examples, >>>clearly your tool was used as spyware. And these are the cases which >>>you brought under discussion. > >This is only in reference to a business environment. > >Would you say in this instance that the tools (firewall logging) used >would be classified as "spyware"?
I would imagine that any product that logs any activity could be considered "spyware" in certain circumstances. This includes IMail, Declude, Exchange, MS Proxy, anything that logs activity. There is a huge difference between products that log activity and "spyware". For example, there is a product that takes low res screen shots of the computer and allows the parent, employer, or other "supervisorial" person to playback everything that was done. Several of CYBERsitter's competitors have built in keyboard logging that keeps a record of everything typed. Although I am sure this has cost us sales and review points, we have consistently refused to incorporate similar functions into CYBERsitter. We have been asked thousands of times to provide functions to capture email messages, and capture instant messaging content. Certainly this is possible, but we won't do that either although there are other products have this capability. In my opinion, these are "spyware" products. Our primary purpose in keeping logs is for support purposes. The user's purpose is probably different, but here again, this is a common function of all "tools" that manage or distribute content. We also track users who come to our web sites. We know what pages they visit, their browser versions, IP addresses, locale, referrers, and operating systems. We, like tens of thousands of other online retailers, use this information for improving traffic flow, determining user interest, and fine tuning our marketing. So are we spying on our customers? I can use the logs generated by IMail to spy on people as easily as any spyware product. I can see who sent what to who, where and when. Does this make it spyware? I don't think so. You can "hold" any message that meets certain criteria with Declude and the administrator can read the entire message. It doesn't have to be spam. Does this make Declude spyware too? I think that an overly broad interpretation of what is "spyware" is foolish, no matter how the data is used. Virtually every Internet related application is designed to manage or regulate the distribution or reception of data in some way. Tools that log activity are absolutely necessary. Tools that are intentionally designed to invade a users privacy are quite another thing entirely. --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses by Declude Virus (http://www.declude.com)] --- This E-mail came from the Declude.JunkMail mailing list. To unsubscribe, just send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and type "unsubscribe Declude.JunkMail". The archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com.
