Spyware or 'Myware'?

[Scarecrow Man]

smooth wombat writes "A new startup aims to provide you with a piece of software that stores all of your sufing habits. Where you go, how long you stay, how many hours online you spend surfing, etc. Why? So you can then offer that information to companies in exchange for something of value. Seth Goldstein's company is in the early testing stages of a service called Root Vaults which right now only works with Firefox. You can choose whether to send this data to your Root Vault, some other service, or just store it on your computer. There are a few restrictions on the use of this data. From the article: 'Any company that uses this data must agree to four basic principles: the data is the property of the user, it can be moved from one service or device to another at will, it can be exchanged for something of value, and the user has the right to know who is using it and how.'"

Maybe if we spy on ourselves, it will stop spyware.... I doubt it.

[r4may]

Not a good Idea, just clutters up the HD with more junk.

[andsome]

They can get knotted as far as I'm concerned.

[Scarecrow Man]

I assume this works much like cookies, but it probably contains more information, as well as human readable information.

Junk is not a strong enough word r4may. This essentially will do what a spyware program would do, but store it locally instead of ship it off to a database.

But you get 'rewards' for participating...... (more spyware?)

Please note this is still in development, and will likely flop on the first day of BETA.

Maybe this is a step in the right direction for spyware. You get to choose whether or not it is used, who uses it, and for how long. Sounds like Spyware is evolving.