Thanks for this post. I won’t be getting a Dell laptop when I buy one now. That’s a crappy way to deal with the Spyware issue.

Intersting note regarding Dell and spy ware… Thanks to you I just installed and ran a spyware remover and found NUMEROUS events. One of which, called “Alexa” came with the following info: Method of Infection:The Alexa toolbar is bundled with Windows XP, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and with some new Dell computers. The toolbar is also available for download at Alexa’s Web site (http://www.alexa.com) and at other shareware and partner sites.

In 2001, Alexa was accused and found guilty of selling private information to its parent company, Amazon, without any user consent, and paid approximately $1.9 million for violating their users’ privacy. Alexa has since stopped this practice and no longer discloses any personally identifiable information to any third party without user consent. For more information concerning Alexa’s privacy policies,

I have to say I hate all the privacy invasion though what I’m wondering is why there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of public outcry over this considering the size of dell and how you’d think many people would like to speak against some “man”. Makes me wonder if some people are considering privacy an old fad.

I think its a VERY GREAT decision on Dell’s part.
And NO, I don’t work for Dell.

Most spyware issues are the customer’s fault and not fault of the computer. 

These are the type of people that click on ads, or everything else, or are lured easy on the internet.  Some of these folks install certain “cute” software intentionally which places spyware on to the machine.

These type of problems is what overloads Dell’s call centers and caused long hold times for it’s customers calling in for legitimate reasons.

Adware and Spyware sucks, but it shouldn’t be on the burden of the Computer Manufacturer to have to fix this.  If anything if Dell did support adware removal, the answer to customers should be to just use the System Restore Disk that shipped with the PC to restore and format the system back to the original state, since this is the easiest way for the majority of customers to fix it.  Since some spyware tends to corrupt Windows anyway, that would make sense.

Most spyware issues are the customer’s fault and not fault of the computer.

These are the type of people that click on ads, or everything else, or are lured easy on the internet.  Some of these folks install certain “cuteâ€? software intentionally which places spyware on to the machine.

Even if spyware were only (unintentionally) installed by people who click on everything, it’s still an invasion of privacy, and should be illegal.  And what Mac said makes it fairly obvious why Dell won’t help anyone fight spyware- they apparently profit from it, just as spammers profit from spam.