Check out this article, Who Profits from Security Holes?, by Benjamin Edelman, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate who specializes in practices and economics of spyware. As a test, he used a fresh copy of Windows XP to visit a single web page (he didn’t say which) and logged what spyware was installed on his computer. At least 16 programs were installed that he could identify and probably more than his spyware detector didn’t find. There’s a link to a screen-shot video of the experiment. It’s a pretty alarming scene.

Edelman takes aim in particular at 180 Solutions, a spyware maker that’s been openly lobbying lately to improve the image of so called “search marketing” vendors (that’s one of many euphemisms this group uses). 180 Solutions drapes itself in the cloak of legitimacy by claiming that distributes only permission-based programs. However, Edelman finds that 180 is as bad as anyone at installing spyware without the user’s permission. This guy has done his homework.