1.1  Where Did Spyware Begin?

So where did this all start? Were the bad guys just waiting around for the internet to be invented so they can cause you problems? No one will know that for certain.

All that is known is that spyware began years ago with cookies. Not the cookies that come out of your oven, but the small files that download to your computer to send information back to its website so the website would be more user-friendly. These cookies were meant to help you in viewing and using the site.

Today, these cookies are probably sending your personal information back to marketing databases or another company that watches what you do on the net.

You can get spyware through free software that you download from a company. It’s free to you because that’s how the company gets statistics about you and all the other users, their computers and their hardware and software. This information could be sold to another organization and you would never know it.

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