This is bad!

Microsoft just downgraded Claria spyware detection! This kind of stuff really pisses me off. It seems that Microsoft has decided that Claria is their new best buddy (now that they are planning to buy it) so products like Gain are now flagged as low or moderate threat by the MS Anti-Spyware and the default action on them is set to ignore.

Anti-spyware activist Eric L. Howes, who serves as a consultant to Sunbelt Software, discovered the default changes during a recent test that included four Claria applications: Dashbar, Gator, PrecisionTime and Weatherscope.

According to the results published by Howes, four different builds of the Windows AntiSpyware beta detected the Claria products, but the default recommendation was "ignore."

There is also a blog entry from Eric Howes which shows a screenshot.

This is unacceptable. How can we trust MS as an Anti-Spyware provider when they pull a stunt like this? Does this mean that from now on, the spyware vendors simply have to offer Microsoft some interesting deal, or financial incentive to be downgraded like this?

What happens when they release this overhyped Anti-Virus of theirs? Are they going to play favors there too?