Many larger companies haven't been willing to stand up to spyware, out of fear of alienating marketers, creating new support headaches, or because of legal concerns. Some ISP's are now offering technology that identifies, but won't remove, the pesky applications. Both AOL and Earthlink have announced they're planning to increasingly integrate anti-spyware technology. But how effective can companies and ISP's be if they're afraid of the marketing industry?

"This is the biggest undiagnosed problem on the Internet," says EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso to the Washington Post. AOL says they'll be incorporating software that will run once a week to eliminate and remove nosy applications, and Earthlink has been offering their own protection since October. Earthlink now plans to expand those offerings with "Spyware Audit", a new anti-spyware application that should be available via the company website within weeks.

Oddly, according to the Post, Earthlink's Audit software will only inform you that you've got spyware on your system. It won't actually remove it for you. For that, users will need to turn to more common anti-spyware applications such as Spybot-Search and Destroy or Lavasoft's Ad-aware. Earthlink is likely concerned of potential software problems caused by removing spyware, or perhaps of running afoul of the increasingly defensive spyware/adware industry.

Gator corporation recently filed a libel suit against the PCPitstop website simply for calling their Gator wallet software 'spyware'. The gator software is bundled with numerous applications, and pitched as a useful service (a fairly feeble claim). In reality its primary purpose is to track users shopping habits, provide them with customized advertisements for products, then kick back fees to the Gator corp. when purchased.

The suit was eventually settled, and PCPitstop relaunched a more comprehensive "Gator Information Center". The new website now offers more information on the application than before; it simply avoids the "spyware" label. Still, companies are hesitant to cross the line against these "legit" marketers, fearing legal retribution. They're also concerned that by "fixing" many of the problems, they'll be responsible for repairing applications that may have depended on the spyware to operate - resulting in a technical support nightmare.

That's part of the reason Dell recently announced their support technicians would not support the removal of spyware from an infected system, nor direct users to the proper applications to do so; even if it was obvious that spyware was responsible for system instability. The decision was well discussed in our Security forum, and many members of the security and anti-spyware industry sent a letter criticizing Dell for the decision.

Dell's response to the criticism (posted to their support forum) was to eventually begin selling an anti-spyware application known as Pest Patrol. Their support technicians were told to refer all inquiries about spyware to the user's ISP (check out this blog halfway down). With ISP's and other companies afraid of retribution from the marketing industries, are we destined for half-hearted solutions to increasingly irritating problems? Should it be their responsibility to resolve these issues to begin with?