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 AOL & Wild Tangent: A Big Deal?
Posted on Monday, March 01 @ 18:29:57 PST by Fido
I received a request today, via the Submit News link on our site, to cover the fact that AOL is including WildTangent Spyware with an AIM installation (supposedly without disclosing this information to you during the install). From what I've been able to un-cover so far, when people first discovered the fact that AOL was including WildTangent software as part of AIM they were pretty pissed off. Most of the companies who make Spyware Removal / Adware Removal tools heard their complaints, and for the most part many of them did nothing in the beginning. The Privacy Statement posted by WildTangent doesn't really list anything that's too alarming (they say they collect stuff but claim that all of it is anonymous) but they left the subject on the table for further review. Now, almost a month after the "big stink" nearly every Spyware Removal / Adware company promptly detects WildTangent as Spyware and will attempt to to remove it from your system if you ask it to do so. This decision was based on the fact that WildTangent sends anonymous information about your computer to an automated process that ensures the right game components are installed, assists with quality assurance, and tells them what kind of games are most popular.
What does WildTangent say about all this? Well, their support forum has an FAQ titled "I've heard that AIM Games has spyware and adware. What is going on here? ". For some people, their answer may be an acceptable one, but other people may say there's no way in hell something like that is going to stay on my computer.
So what should you do about this? The call here is ultimately up to you. If you're using the latest version of AIM, and you don't mind if WildTangent knows what kind of computer you have and what games you like the most, then don't worry about it. If you're concerned about your privacy, then grab yourself a copy of Ad-aware along with the latest reference file and remove it from your system. In either case, the way the software was distributed may be enough for many of you to make your decision on that fact alone.
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Average Score: 4.76
Votes: 34
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Spyware is the devil (Score: 1)
by Webster on Tuesday, March 02 @ 06:45:39 PST
(User Info | Send a Message | Journal) | | Spyware is the devil, and AIM is no different now. Oh well, so it goes. I'll stick to my old outdated version on my laptop which I only use for seti crunching and AIM, basically. And for having an emergency connection if I have a problem with my desktop. |
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Re: AOL & Wild Tangent: A Big Deal? (Score: 1)
by tecgod13 on Saturday, March 06 @ 00:52:11 PST
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Sounds like spyware to me. After all, it is spying on you and reporting information about your computer to the mothership. |
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