Cornell McCleary  

 The Powerful global web service software company’s AOL Version 9.0 Security Edition, installs super powerful spy ware programs on unsuspecting AOL software users and, when a user removes the identified spy ware, it reinstalls itself the very next time you launch AOL as your web browser.

Note*  Since I publicly posted on the Internet my original post regarding what I believe as outrageous conduct on the part of AOL, a key anti-spyware company has down-graded or describing AOL's Security Edition 9.0 from "Spyware" to "Adware" and made available a download that is suppose to kill the "Viewpoint" spyware.  Well, when I used the download, which was not available before my Internet post, It wiped out the spyware program until I launched AOL 9.0 again and, wiped out my entire address book.  You think there was a message in that for me?

By Cornell McCleary - www.american-experience.us
 

Years ago AOL launched a major media campaign highlighting computer security and highly promoting their AOL Version 9.0 Security Edition.  What AOL did not tell the global public is that if you loaded the so-call Security Edition software on your computer, you also loaded a hidden powerful spy ware program called “Viewpoint” authored by the Viewpoint Corporation.

If the spy ware program is installed on your system you can find it in two locations if you have “Windows” also installed on your system.  If you go to the “Control Panel” under add/delete programs you will find a program called “Viewpoint Media Player”, delete that sucker and, if you do a director search of your system in the “Programs” folders, you will find a folder labeled “Viewpoint”, wipe that sucker out too if you can.  However, to do so, you have to make sure that all AOL programs are shut down and not running in the background, run an anti-spy ware program then, restart your system.  Be advised, that every time that you restart the AOL browser, you have to do this sweep routine all over.

Some of Viewpoints spy ware’s characteristics are that it Displays ads, Tracks browsing activity with secretly installed applications, Tracks browsing activity with cookies, Has an Insufficient privacy disclosure and consent statement and Uses excessive system resources.

Pareto Logic Inc., a software security company, describes, “Uses excessive system resources” as ”Whether they are poorly designed or intentionally malicious, these programs hog a PC’s memory and monopolize CPU processing time. This often results in your system becoming noticeably slow and may cause other programs to crash or function unexpectedly. A large number of Trojan horse programs and worms overuse system resources intentionally, while other applications simply contain programming errors and memory leaks that result in the degradation of system performance or undesirable system behavior. “

If an ordinary citizen was doing what AOL is doing, that citizen would be or on they’re way to jail.  To date, I am not aware of one mainstream media reporting this issue and I’m sure that what I’m posting is not a freakin secret.  The public, rightfully so, should be outraged.