So, I was reading a review today about browsers and who uses which one more frequently and all the jazz surrounding it and it referenced a site that said they had 22,000+ “widget” users who were sending them data. Almost like the Seti@Home project that used to exist a while back to try and help harness supercomputer powers. So, I visited their site:
http://www.xpnet.com/default.htm
and thought I’ll be number 22,001 and help the statistics and also see what kind of data I can get back from my workstation. Pretty straightforward right? After reading the details of the project, website says click on register so I did that…gave the boys some basic information about myself and happy days, I got a registration number – 78561. What can I do with this number you ask? Well, there’s the tracker agent which requires this number to send back all of my data (every 60 minutes). Perfect…Let’s get that little beauty (if you don’t register, you can still get it here):
http://www.xpnet.com/clarity9/msi/cfwtrackerw.msi
So, got the agent and what is the next step? Naturally, install her (why is it that I gave details to guys but the agent is a girl?)! Double click and WHOA WHOA WHOA, Microsoft LCA is going to be all over you…either that or you’ve got a lawsuit waiting to go after Microsoft. What is it I’m on about you’re saying? Well, let’s look at the installer:
There’s the installer’s splash screen. Nice font, a bit hard to read, but wow, I like your logo…sort of reminds me of…hmm…oh yeah, Windows 7. Ok, so maybe it was unintentional, right? Well, lets click next…
Hey, check it out. That fancy logo found its way in the upper right corner, which can only mean one thing… They built the MSI with that logo as their company logo.
I guess if I’ve got a few words of advice for these guys…better think about a new logo or your research will be of a legal nature more likely than not and no longer a data gathering one 
