does µTorrent contain adware / spyware?

i recently became aware some controversy over the possibility that the popular bittorrent client µTorrent contains adware and/or spyware...

there are a number of threads on the µTorrent forums about so i thought i'd use this an an object lesson in how to make these determinations for yourself - and as an added bonus, we're going to do it without even downloading the software...

we can do that by looking at what the software's author had to say about the issue here...

“Nothing is placed on the user's machine [when the NanoTorrent browser opens,]” Ludvid explains. “It's an advertisement inside the web browser only, the ad comes from a webserver owned by me, and it's removed when the window is closed. No cookies at all are installed, not even my own…The ads are generated by the script on the webserver. The µTorrent client as such does not contain any ads. They are generated by the webserver and shown through a php script to the webbrowser when the user searches.”

so it does in fact display ads - and not just by accident, the browser is directed to his own site to display ads hosted there... the fact that the ads are not contained in the bittorrent client is not really an issue - adware doesn't need to contain the ads it displays, it just needs to display ads... the fact that the client isn't actually displaying the ads in a window that's part of the client itself but instead uses a browser window is also not really an issue, plenty of adware uses browser windows to display their ads (it saves them from having to reinvent the wheel)...

the interesting thing (at least to me) is that there is no 3rd party adware client software - the ad-serving functionality is built by the same person(s) who built the µTorrent client... it's an option i didn't cover in my post about software developers who go the adware route but it's an important one none-the-less... if a software developer finds s/he needs ad revenue, creating the ad serving engine in-house is an excellent way to avoid the pitfalls of potentially nefarious behaviour from 3rd party adware clients... a software developer has the potential to offer users a far more benign adware client if they go this route than if they just accept whatever some 3rd party hands them...

unfortunately that potential seems to be lost in this case... for one thing, the ad-supported nature is not disclosed on the front page of the site nor on the download page - probably because the author doesn't want to admit that it's adware (just because you make it yourself doesn't mean it's not adware)... potential users need to be informed about this sort of thing, they need to be able to make an informed decision about whether they want to install software that displays ads before they download and install it... not disclosing it (whether one is in denial or for some other reason) is a breach of good faith...

the other thing that negates it's potential to be benign is the spyware issue...

The latest version of µTorrent, version 1.5, contains an integrated search feature. The end user can opt to search several of the major search engines, such as Mininova, ThePirateBay, TorrentSpy, and isoHunt. Once the search is conducted, an independent browser window is opened. Instead of going to the Mininova.org domain however, the browser is directed to NanoTorrent.com.

that basically tells me that my search queries are being sent somewhere other than the search engine they were intended for... oh, they get to their intended destination eventually, but not before going through a middle-man first... we're assured that the information is not collected or used in any way, but that's not the point (nor is it something we can verify)... spyware isn't spyware because the information it gives a 3rd party is abused, it's spyware because it gives a 3rd party (in this case nanotorrent.com, owned and operated by the same guy) your information (in this case your search queries)... personally, i would rather my search queries not go through middle-men - not because i search for things that i'd be ashamed to let others know about but rather purely on the basis of principle - what i search for is between me and my search engine of choice...