Microsoft to Charge for Spyware Removal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Microsoft Corp. disclosed plans Thursday to offer frustrated users of its Windows software new tools within 30 days to remove spyware programs secretly running on computers. But it might cost extra in coming months.

In a shift from past practice, the world’s largest software manufacturer said it may charge consumers for future versions of the new protective technology, which Microsoft acquired by buying a small New York software firm. Terms of the sale of Giant Company Software Inc. weren’t disclosed.

Spyware is a category of irritating programs that secretly monitor the online activities of Internet users and can cause sluggish computer performance or popup ads.

article

Sounds to me like Microsoft is running out of income for the moment. Think about it a minute.

Most people who have switched to Windows XP have already switched. Microsoft dove into the console market with Xbox, where it is losing money. Microsoft went into office, where it is losing market share slowly, while still maintaining over 90% of the market share. Microsoft is into almost all they can get their hands on and have dominated everything (I will save my near-monopoly speech for a later time) that they touched. They need something new, something to sell, something that will make money for them.

Enter spyware into the factor. Since they already have a much market share in the other businesses they are into (as in, they won’t gain market share, the only way to go is down), they need to sell something new. Much, much later on (after the evil Palladium or Next Generation Secure Computing Base or whatever they plan to call it later on is implemented), something will happen to Microsoft, which will either be a fall that causes them to charge per month on the use of their operating system or they do it without that.

There is also the theory of Microsoft purposefully putting in bugs and implementing ActiveX just so that they can do this sort of thing later. They may be extremely corrupt, but not that corrupt. Maybe later, but as of now, their code is beyond repair, it is their fault (almost anyone will agree), but they didn’t do it on purpose.

Yes, this was published and written after 1:30AM EST. :)

Leave a Reply