Yin and Yang Press for Zone Labs/180 Solutions

I cheered last night when I read Ed Foster's Gripe Line blog post about Zone Labs and 180 Solutions in Infoworld.com. He pulled no punches in Case Against Zone Labs is 180 Degrees Off:

• It's a sad fact that, as the big guys like Symantec and Microsoft have moved into the anti-spyware game, the trend is to be much more euphemistic about what you label as spyware, particularly when the spyware vendor claims to have gotten the user's consent to the installation through a EULA. While "potentially unwanted software" like 180's apps will still be tagged by the anti-spyware scan, the default setting now will often not be to remove it. Increasingly, anti-spyware vendors simply aren't calling a spade a spade, and that of course is a trend the adware crowd like 180Solutions wants to encourage.
  So the real point of this lawsuit is not that ZoneAlarm is saying misleading things about 180, but that it's being too clear and accurate.

Then I read Andrew Brandt's post in PC World on the same topic and got concerned.

• A lot of other common (and completely safe) software also triggered this same ZoneAlarm warning about keystroke logging/mouse movement monitoring.

And

• The fact of the matter is, ZoneAlarm is alerting people to something that is a fundmental, underlying component of many applications--both legitimate and dangerous--but the adware industry in general is super-sensitive about other companies characterizing their software as a keystroke logger.

Andrew's points about the technology implementation in the new revs of the ZoneAlarm products may be technically correct, i.e., that's how the code is working. But I think he's missing the real point. The issue is NOT about how 'the adware industry in general is super-sensitive'. It's about informing consumers and, when necessary, giving them a choice.

I think Ed Foster got this one right and then some.