Companies are playing both sides in the war on spyware; applauded for fighting the internet scourge by offering consumers feeble anti-spyware services, while working to preserve marketing relationships with the very companies filling your PC with garbage. Spyware "removal" tools that don't actually remove spyware, or products that refuse to remove adware of marketing partners - are becoming all too common in a war on spyware that's little more than a well staged song and dance.

Earthlink recently received webwide applause for releasing a new anti-spyware application that detected all of the assorted marketing nasties on your PC. The glorious press release served its purpose, pegging the company as a kind and concerned netizen, while Earthlink also kindly offered a new stat page that tracks just how serious the problem has become.

"There are Twenty-Eight instances of spyware on each user's PC!" the company proudly proclaimed.

Of the hundreds of outlets that covered the story and heaped praise on the ISP, only a handful actually mentioned that once the application identifies all of this foul malodourousness, it simply then leaves it all intact. Earthlink was in essence praised for standing in a street and pointing to a mugging.... .

Why won't they remove the spyware? Perhaps it's a fear of impacting the functionality of some applications, which require certain adware files remain intact to run properly (which their technicians must then support). It's also likely the company didn't want to piss off litigation-happy marketing companies who are at the heart of an incestuous and profitable marketing orgy.

Earthlink obviously isn't alone; AOL is planning their own spyware removal tool as an added service to subscribers. We'll be absolutely shocked if the product eliminates the intrusive aspects of both Weatherbug and Wild Tangent, two marketing applications recently bundled with AOL Instant Messenger. It's not that big a deal, we suppose; Wild Tangent only requires a twenty-four step process to remove it from your computer.

This week finds Yahoo joining the hypocrite's parade say critics, releasing a spyware removal toolbar beta that doesn't remove the adware of their marketing partners (or anyone else for that matter) by default. According to eWeek, Claria (the makers of Gator and the company that sued PC-Pitstop for calling Gator spyware) receives 31% of its revenue through Yahoo's Overture ad listing service.

Yahoo also has an extensive relationship with WhenU.com, the company that calls its business "contextual marketing," and is currently suing the state of Utah for a recent law that makes no distinction between adware or spyware. WhenU was also recently caught artificially inflating their Google rankings via "cloaking".

In the war on spam, we're seeing an increasingly strong line being drawn between "legit e-mail marketing" (when it comes from a partner of AOL, Yahoo or Microsoft), or "spam" (when it comes from an offshore porn empire). That same demarcation process is occurring in the war on spyware; where "adware" is an accepted nuisance and "spyware" is a troublesome scourge.

Why? Such semantics allow the marketing industry to spend four years penning legislation like the "Can Spam Act". That glorious law pretends to protect the consumer, but actually protects the marketing industry and allows them to legally spam - provided they jump through a few hoops. You can bet you'll soon see a new law - also written by the marketing industry - that pretends to protect the consumer from spyware. Instead it will offer the marketing industry legal protection, in case one day you awake and decide to get angry about the bubbling cyber-infestation you once called a PC.

Companies are increasingly playing both sides in the spyware/adware battle; garnering public praise for "protecting" their users from marketing garbage, yet doing all they can to maintain their profitable marketing relationships with many of these sleazy companies. The large providers and portals are undeserving of praise unless they're willing to offer real spyware/adware removal programs that finish the job and force them to pick a side.