Beware! Spyware Companies Trying To Act Legit By Bribing Anti-Spyware Companies

This hot off the desk from mile at TechDirt:
Last week, we wrote about Direct Revenue, a spyware/adware company that kept claiming that it was trying to be transparent, when all of the evidence suggested otherwise. One of the execs of the company quoted in the article kept using the excuse that they offered their very own anti-spyware cleanup system that would remove products, as if that was a defense. Well, it appears that others in the spyware/adware/malware space are looking to co-opt the anti-spyware offerings, sometimes with what looks very much like bribery. Broadband Reports points to WhenU's agreement with an anti-spyware company, whereby that anti-spyware product will no longer remove WhenU, even though WhenU hasn't actually changed the product, plenty of people have no clue they installed it and they aren't happy that it's there. WhenU and other spyware companies have apparently been approaching plenty of anti-spyware vendors with deals to get free publicity if they agree to stop designating their products as spyware. Wouldn't it just be easier to set up the products so that they never install without permission and are completely upfront about what the products actually do? That would seem a much better path to getting out of anti-spyware programs.