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Harvard and Oxford have launched www.stopbadware.com. According to their website, they are organized by Harvard's Berkman Center, Oxford's Internet Institute, and Consumer Web Watch. Their sponsors include Google, Lenovo, and Sun Microsystems.
The initiative is like a "Neighborhood Watch" program for the WWW, seeking to fight badware. Badware are programs that automatically install themselves on your computer without your consent and/or knowledge.
They want to provide objective information on badware and its perpetrators. They also desire to "become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware".
The International Herald Tribune indicates such an initiative is necessary because the "spread of noxious code and the ease with which it can be deposited on unsuspecting users' machines has generally outpaced the ability of legislative and regulatory measures to grapple with the problem."
John Stith states the program will work like this:
? You can visit StopBadware.org to see whether programs you want to download have badware and tell others about programs you have come across that include spyware, non-stop pop-ups or other obtrusive programs.
? StopBadware.org will publish short user friendly reports on badware downloads.
? StopBadware.org will list the names of companies that use badware and show how they make money through unethical marketing practices.
? StopBadware.org will get your badware horror stories and publish these stories to raise awareness of badware's affects.
CIAO for now,
Randy
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