AOL, Outrage?
By AznAsianAndy
@AznAsianAndy (78)
Philippines
February 20, 2007 8:48pm CST
I haven't noticed this until I was told. A program named "Viewpoint" managed to install itself onto my computer without my consent or my awareness. I removed the program quickly, but as I opened up and used AIM, it managed to reinstall itself, without my consent yet again. The privacy policy states that "The Viewpoint Media Player will soon be capable of tracking information about the content it displays and how the user interacts with it." With all that, that does not give them a right to install such a program on my computer without asking me whether I want it or not.
On another program by the same company, using a program such as Netscape or ICQ will insert "free.aol.com" into Trusted Zones. When a site is in a Trusted Zone, IE allows the site to download ANYTHING to your computer without asking or telling you. Quoted from Computer.net, The reason for AOL inserting that entry became clear when we started spotting ActiveX files from free.aol.com in people's HijackThis log files" which means this has been happening for a while without people knowing.
Another program downloaded by AIM is called "Wild Tangent". It is used to play games and other multimedia. The problem is that it has an auto updater that cannot be turned off. The data that is transmitted sends information on your computer and how you interact with it. They have even said that this information may be shared with 3rd parties.
A lot of information can be found about "Viewpoint" on Google, this is a sum up and quotes from two or three different sites. Discuss.
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