A Holistic Approach for Managing Spyware

In spite of an ambiguous standard with regard to definition, spyware is one of the most challenging problems confronting the information technology (IT) community in terms of privacy violations. This problem is magnified in the business arena. Despite the increasing technical endeavors made toward spyware mitigation, no panacea exists for spyware control and management, which is now becoming a serious business strategic issue. This article focuses on the vicious side of spyware. A framework is proposed to identify five involved parties for spyware management and control along with respective recommendations to cope with spyware pervasion.