Hear, Hear

Glenn Reynolds on intrusive, system-disrupting, "we're here to help you" software. The latest perpetrator is Amazon.com. His piece is called "Keep Your Grubby Mitts Off My Hard Drive".

It concludes:

What's more, the whole philosophy here -- from the program's spyware-like behavior to its requiring you to login to uninstall software -- is totally wrong. Get this straight content providers: Our computers belong to us. If we're in the mood, we might let you sell us some stuff to run on them. But they don't belong to you, and we're not likely to surrender control over our own bought-and-paid-for hardware, which we often rely on to do our jobs and run our lives, simply in exchange for letting you sell us something. (Honestly, most of what you're selling isn't all that good anyway, and you're lucky that people buy it at all. So don't get greedy. And while click-through license agreements may make it legal, they won't make you any more popular.)

This isn't as bad as the disastrous Sony spyware scandal -- which also involved problems with uninstallation. But it's bad enough. As much as people in the entertainment business go on about their intellectual property, they're pretty cavalier with other people's personal property.

So here's my advice: Keep your grubby software off of my computer, or do without my business.