The cherry picker argument

Ottawa Boy

Ok. I'm a marketting company.
I make a game , say , MaJong, it's a good game, people like it.
I give it away free.

But ....

I include some tracking software in it. Shows you ads, tracks what web pages you go to things like that.

But... I tell you point blank I'm doing this, ,I don't hide it. And give you the option of not playing my game if you don't like it.


Now then, the user reads all this , downloads the game anyways, runs a virus scanner, and the virus scanner removes my tracking software but leaves the game intact. He's now playing the game without being tracked. without "paying for it" so to speak , since I intended to track his movement across the internet in lieu of charging him any money.

Who's right ? Who's wrong ? Who broke the rules ?
Interesting situation.

There is some credibility in the argument that the user should not have downloaded the program in the first place, and that the virus scanner is wrong to remove the software without removing "all" the software, even the game, because that constitutes not paying for the game in question. You are picking the cherries (the good parts) and leaving the rest behind.

There is also some credibility to the argument that such tracking software is a violation of privacy and should not have been bundled in the first place. This is the same as what happened up here in Canada with smoking. Bars and restaurants could decide for themselves if they would permit you to smoke in them, but every single bar and restaurant in the country promptly became a smokers haven. 100% of them. Why ? Because in every group of 2 or 3 or more people there was at least one smoker, and you didn't want the whole group to wander off elsewhere...so EVERY bar became a smokers paradise , instead of being able to make their own decision on the matter. The market FORCED the situation , whether they liked it or not , and the only solution was to legally FORCE it right back to where it was illegal to smoke in a bar at all.

Similarily , if you permit such advertising to be part of the bundle in any software, paid or free, then the market will very quickly FORCE every single software manufacturer everywhere to include spyware in their products. Picture buying a copy of microsoft word, perfectly legit , and it's spamming the heck out of you because everything does that.

You don't think so ? Look at television. Thousands of puportedly different stations and companies, but every single one of them has spam (advertising). Not just a little, but literally more ads than actual content. The rule of thumb is 22 minutes of show in an hour, and thats universal , across dozens of so called "competing" companies and stations. They're not competing on that point, I've noticed.

Look at cable TV. You're paying for that tv. And that means you're paying not only for the 22 min of show every hour, but the 38 minutes of ads too.

Where this takes a left turn from television , however , is that the TV ads don't crash the TV. The spam does crash and render useless your computer , however, as anyone who's ever caught a virus knows. The thing slows right down ..even to the point where it won't even boot up any more ,and you just want to toss the thing into the trash.

Aha.
Picture cleaning up all the virus's (and thus programs) from your computer and making it work.

Picture installing your favorite game ,and one or two "productivity packages" (spread sheets ,word processers, ,business applications basically). But it all comes with spy ware, and so you're system is back to square one again ..infected to a fair thee well and spamming you like crazy.

And you just cleaned it too.