Originally Posted by ScottC
Tribalfusion IS NOT spyware.
Banner ad's ARE NOT spyware.
Cookies ARE NOT spyware.
Tribal Fusion is nothing but an Internet banner placement service Flyertalk uses to show relevant banners, the "spyware" is nothing but an innocent cookie Tribal Fusion uses to monitor the ad's it has served you, making sure you don't get 1000 public service announcement banners and zero commercial banners.
I wish these "spyware" scanners would once and for all stop claiming that cookies are evil. TRUE spyware is nasty stuff, impossible to remove without decent knowledge and not made for innocent purposes.
I have to disagree with this. I'll agree that banner ads are not true spyware. However they are not benign, friendly content either.
TribalFusion, as one example, has in the past served up links to malacious sites, such that if you click through a few layers you will get infected with malware. This is documented on malware investigation/cleanup websites, spywareinfo.com for one. Furthermore, TribalFusion does use tracking cookies, and it may seem innocent and even useful that the intent of these tracking cookies is to keep you from getting thousands of public service announcements, but why would anyone want to have an advertiser track which ads you have been server and have viewed?
The scanners don’t have a zero-tolerance approach to all cookies, but they are clearly biased on the side of caution. For example, you can select to always accept cookies from a site or URL if you so desire. When TribalFusion says ‘our cookies are benign’ and the makers of AdAware say “no, they’re not”, who do you believe, the people wanting to serve you ads, or the people wanting to protect your privacy.