Is Viewpoint moving to adware?

Originally, I thought Viewpoint Media Player came bundled with my computer. When I uninstalled it from Add/Remove, AOL did not function......so it must have been installed with AOL. When I checked with AOL, I was told Viewpoint Media Player was needed. This was two years ago.......perhaps things have changed since then.

Miki

From the Nov. 4th issue of SWI's Newsletter:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/newsletter/archives/2005/nov4.php#viewpoint

Mike Healan wrote:
I just performed a quick test and found that AIM STILL installs Viewpoint and STILL doesn't disclose it. The only improvement that I can see compared to a year ago is that it did not reinstall Viewpoint after I removed it from add/remove.

The reason that I bring all of this up again is the following announcement from Viewpoint: they intend to start serving advertisements through the software. According to this article, "It will work by collecting clickstream data on users who have installed the Viewpoint media player, then using that data to target ads and content on the company's partner sites.".

Putting that into plain language, it means that Viewpoint's software will track your web surfing and tailor advertisements based on the web pages you are visiting.

The Viewpoint Toolbar is listed is also classified as a threat in the CounterSpy Threat Library because it Quote:
hijacks your search queries and also transmits non personally identifiable information back to their servers


http://research.sunbelt-software.com/threat_display.cfm?name=ViewPoint%20Beta&threatid=29501&search=viewpoint

<<Mike Healan wrote:
I just performed a quick test and found that AIM STILL installs Viewpoint and STILL doesn't disclose it.>>

When I removed Viewpoint with Add/Remove, I was not able to use AOL.....on my computer, it seems AIM alone was not the culprit. It might be time to try again to uninstall Viewpoint.

Miki

I Want to thank Mike Healan for the info on Viewpoint.
I too, have had Viewpoint come up on a couple of my spyware detectors, but I couldn't find anything about where it came from. I had had my computer reformated and it came with the package or one of the few items I downloaded. Now that I know for certain it is spyware I can delete it without worry of losing my programs. So Thanks!
Stardreamer

'Viewpoint Media Player is the graphics engine for AOL