virus?
Possibly, but possibly not. Assume that someone installs a piece of freeware and uses it for a while. On a certain day, that software reads his address book and sends out an advertisement like the one Amy sent. The user goes back and sees that, yes, in the middle of the EULA there is a paragraph that very explicitly says the software can do this if the user is using the software.
Not a virus. Definitely spam, and the spammer is the poor user who "chose" to become a spammer in exchange for getting the high value of using the software.
Thought experiment: if there is an enforceable anti-spam law in effect at the time, would the software vendor have a strong argument that the end users, not the vendor, were the spammers because the users agreed to the contract?
I predict that some variant of the above will happen, and it will be messy.
--Paul Hoffman, Director --Internet Mail Consortium
