Spyware Makers Rake in $2B a Year

It Oughta Be a Crime… Spyware is a $2 billion business, if you believe Webroot’s estimate. The anti-spyware firm guesses that the spyware-adware market may make up as much as 25 percent of the traditional online advertising market. The Register questions Webroot’s estimate because it assumes that spyware is distributed uniformly. Webroot collects data from customers of its consumer and corporate anti-spyware tools. According to Webroot, in the first quarter of 2005, 88 percent of scans using its SpyAudit software found some kind of unwanted program (from Trojan horses to cookies). Corporate PCs were found to be particularly at risk as 55 percent of them had some form of unwanted program even when cookies were excluded from the measurement. For tips on how you can rid your company’s PCs of spyware, read “Scumware Out There” from the November 2004 issue.