If you are not familiar with the software Spybot Search & Destroy, it is one of the better anti-spyware software packages for removing malware crud from your computer. Spybot has been around for quite a while and many people depend on this fine software to keep their systems clean. Oh, and the best part is it is free.

Well it seems that a company by the name of Oska Educational Systems Pty Limited is threatening the writer of Spybot because it seems to feel that it is being picked on as being spyware. Well the writer of Spybot concludes from his statement on his Web site the following:

What do you think when a casino software, some toolbars, and a girl dancing on your desktop do appear on your computer without you wanting them to do so? We think that’s a typical case of what has different names, from trojan downloader or trojan dropper to hijacker.

Well, those probably not fully naked dancing desktop girls from that malware package are something named DeskMates from a company called Oska Educational Systems Pty Limited. Whether this kind of anatomy is really educational is another question not to be dealt with today, more important is that Oska didn’t like their “mates” to be detected as a part of a trojan installation – understandable if they should have nothing to do with the trojan. But then, instead of working with us to stop the trojan horse that is spreading their software (and if it is an affiliate they pay money for each installation, they should have the financial records to track it), they rejected any of our attempts to help them track down the trojan source, instead – even though they clearly showed that they do not want to know anything about those trojans from us – letting their attorney tell us mysterious stories on how this would be impossible, and that they will sue us for the damages to their reputation done by this trojan instead.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like something I don’t want on my computer system. I applaud the folks at Spybot for standing their ground to what appears to be unwarranted threats from a greedy software vendor.

What is your take on this? Does it sound like spyware to you?

Comments welcome.

Full story is here.

[tags]spybot, spyware, threats, trojan[/tags]