As we recently saw, automatic subscription renewals seem to have become de rigueur for antivirus software vendors. But one reader recently discovered that the practice is creeping into the anti-spyware category as well.

"Should I be outraged or not?" the reader headed his message to me. "I purchased copies of PC Tools' Spyware Doctor several years ago, and have been satisfied with it up until last week. Instead of merely sending me a reminder to renew my one-year subscription, PC Tools took the liberty of renewing it for me and charging my credit card."

If the reader had "agreed" to the renewal in a PC Tools EULA, he wasn't aware of it. "To my knowledge, I had never been asked to agree to an autorenewal. In fact, I would need to sign up for an account on the PC Tools website in order to change my renewal preferences. And if my e-mail address had changed in the past year, I would not have known what this strange charge was on my credit card bill, if indeed I'd even have noticed it at all. Even Symantec has not had the gall to stoop to this sort of thing, at least not yet."

Spotted here