Stop the Pushers | An open letter.

Malware is a problem that affects everyone, but it can be especially harmful to people like myself who depend on computers to accommodate health problems such as brain injury. Today I hope to bring an end to this plague on computer users by taking away the financial incentives for software publishers to push unwanted software that changes settings, often disrupting how other software works, especially software that helps brain-injured people like myself to function on a daily basis.

Stop the Pushers | An open letter.

realnetworks.com

 

Updated Today

RealNetworks, Inc.462 7th Avenue, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10018

Dear Sir or Madame,

I was just about to allow an automated update to my realplayer when I noticed a pre-checked box authorizing installation of malware. This behavior on your company's part ought to be illegal, and I am posting this open letter on my blog to encourage other people to;

1. Publicly report all "updates" that push unrelated software
2. Write their congress person requesting this kind of activity be made explicitly illegal, with a provision for victims of pushed software to sue both the company that pushes unrelated software, and the company whose product is intended to be pushed, even if that company is the same company providing the update.
3. Write the offending company to demand that advertisements for other products may only be posted on update screens in a periferal area of the screen in a smaller and dimmer font that does not match the appearance of any fonts used to describe information about the update.
4. Not to install any update that attempts to push other software with pre-selected defaults to install.
5. Uninstall any software that cannot be updated without having to unselect an "option" to install unrelated software.

Sincerely,

David Lloyd

stopthepushers@1loyd.com

• United States

  Seattle, WA

  CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS

  RealNetworks, Inc.
  Street Address:2601 Elliott Avenue
  Seattle, WA 98121
  Mailing Address:PO Box 91123
  Seattle, WA 98111-9223

  Phone: 1-206-674-2700
  Fax: 1-206-674-2696
  Helix Sales: 1-800-444-8011

  Reston, VA

  RealNetworks, Inc.11600 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 200
  Reston, VA 20191

  Phone: 1-703-437-4422
  Fax: 1-703-437-6515

  New York, NY

  RealNetworks, Inc.462 7th Avenue, 3rd Floor
  New York, NY 10018

  Phone: 1-212-391-6668
  Fax: 1-212-391-9566