Elliott
Abergavenny,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, October 27, 2005
Unfortunately, you may have no redress. The Internet has caused many of the legal issues that are prominent to protect the consumer to be 'invalidated'. Essentially, when you download a program and agree to install it you have in effect signed the contract displayed digitally, and are therefore bound by its terms and conditions. None of us read them, lets me honest, so you probably only found out about the contract after installing it and therefore agreeing to it. As I posted in another thread about such software it is best to not install anything that promises to fix everything, unless it is a reliable manufacturer's name on the box and has more than one program (like Norton's Internet Suite for example). The majority of these download programs that 'speed up your computer, fix viruses and spyware, elimation fungal infections in your dog an clean your kitchen sink' are relying on your to install them for you to have to pay for fixes, or to get hold of your details by installing spyware themselves. You did however save yourself by reinstalling XP. Do yourself a big favour and change all your passwords too, you can never be too careful (ideally they should be changed every so often anyway). Use the onscreen keyboard (Start/Run -osk.exe) to type them in - I would recommend always using this for passwords particularly for banking or other important websites. Also, use a personal firewall product (I like Kerio's personally) so that you can see if the software you've just installed is trying to connect to somewhere else. You'd be surprised at how many products try and send data back to their owners, even games.