However, in early 2000 the founder of Zone Labs, Gregor Freund, used the term in a press release for the ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall. Spyware at first denoted hardware meant for espionage purposes. The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on Octoin a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. In any case, these programs still use the resources of the host computer without permission. It is debatable whether such 'legitimate' uses of adware/spyware are malware since the user often has no knowledge of these 'legitimate' programs being installed on his/her computer and is generally unaware that these programs are infringing on his/her privacy. These programs are not considered malware, but are still spyware as they watch and observe for advertising purposes. However, a number of companies have incorporated forms of spyware into their products. Its products remove or disable existing spyware on the computers they are installed on and prevent its installation. The spread of spyware has led to the development of an entire anti-spyware industry. More malicious variants attempt to intercept passwords or credit card numbers as a user enters them into a web form or other applications. Some variants attempt to track the websites a user visits and then send this information to an advertising agency. Spyware may collect different types of information. Purposes range from overtly criminal (theft of passwords and financial details) to the merely annoying (recording Internet search history for targeted advertising, while consuming computer resources). Personal information is secretly recorded with a variety of techniques, including logging keystrokes, recording Internet web browsing history, and scanning documents on the computer's hard disk. The term, coined in 1995 but not widely used for another five years, is often used interchangeably with adware and malware (software designed to infiltrate and damage a computer).
SMG3 comes in, wanting to use the bathroom, and kicks the door that makes Bonzi Buddy fly out. He appears in the flashback, talking to Hank Hill at the Starbucks in the Internet Graveyard. He is a purple monkey that has typical characteristics of a Monkey. Spyware Guide's entry on the program also states that it is adware. Trend Micro and Symantec have both classified the software as adware. The activities the program is said to engage in include constantly resetting the user's web browser homepage to without the user's permission, prompting and tracking various information about the user, installing a toolbar, and serving advertisements. In 2002, an article in Consumer Reports Web Watch labelled BonziBuddy as spyware, stating that it contains a backdoor trojan that collects information from users. It is often referred to in some software as Adult Male #2.Ī number of sources identify BonziBuddy as spyware, a claim the company disputed. The voice was called Sydney and taken from an old Lernout & Hauspie Microsoft Speech API 4.0 package.
The program also used a text-to-speech voice to interact with the user. Later versions of BonziBuddy in May 2000 featured its own character: Bonzi, the purple gorilla. The software used Microsoft Agent technology similar to Office Assistant, and originally sported Peedy, a green parrot and one of the characters available with Microsoft Agent.