Wow. The good folks at Lavasoft – creators of the excellent Ad Aware program for detecting and removing spyware and stuff – have announced rather forcefully that they are pulling out of the Consortium of Anti-Spyware Technology Vendors (COAST) that they created. This is a rather sad indictment of commercial pollution in the software business, but shines a beacon of light on the genuine motives of the Lavasoft crew. Good on them!

‘The current leadership’s overt agenda to concentrate on revenue generation flies in the face of the spirit of the original mission Lavasoft set forth when we founded COAST. Not only do their current efforts shed a bad light on COAST, but also reflect badly on the entire anti-trackware industry.’