OK, this is far from shareware, I agree. It made the news recently that some companies (RealNetworks, Netscape/AOL, NetZip) had features built in their software that was sending info to the motherbase about downloading habit of their users with extreme precision, along with name, e-mail address and unique-ID. Each instance of the software has a unique number, which makes it possible to track a single machine. These companies claimed that this was not used with the intent of tracking down users habits, and planned to remove these "features" in the next version, if it's not already done right now. The stir started when software publisher Steve Gibson made some research to confirm some rumors (that proved to be true after all). For more details on this, go see http://grc.com/.
This kind of software is bad. I'd almost say evil. But my Bible isn't the book that talks about God, and all, but 1984 from George Orwell. To me, today's corporate powers are the Big Brother described in Orwell's book. But then I thought, "if it's good for them, then why not the other way around?"
2. Some shareware models
4. Turning corporate guns against itself: share-aware
Table of contents