This past year a team came out with an instant messaging client. It was provided free of charge. They needed to make some money. So they started experimenting on how they could profit off their users. Of course they tried having ads in their app. Then they got creative. They released some malware but got busted by LifeHacker.Later the company came out and tried to do damage control. They call the malware their "research" module. That is a spin on the act of some software getting installed with their instant messenger, then taking over control of your computer to do their parallel processing.
In the good old days, sneaky code like this was shipped out with free programs. The bad boys just hoped you did not detect that your machine had been compromised. Now it has been taken to another level. When some tech site does detect you app doing sneaky things, you put the marketing spin on the evil deed to make it look like you are doing no evil. LOL. Damn those marketing guys.
Oh yeah. If you are wondering what product I am talking about, it is Digby. I am safe. My IM software is Yahoo Messenger. And Yahoo makes some green backs off me. However they just put the ads in my face. At least they are not trying to hide anything there.
