User:Anneeliz/myware

Myware is the term given to applications, which use spyware technologies but are designed to enable users to spy on themselves rather than others. The term was first coined by Seth Goldstein in 2005 to apply to his short-lived Attention Trust system.

The term myware has mainly been applied to software applications in three areas: social networking, marketing and time tracking.

History and development

The first application to be described as myware was the Attention Trust system, which was launched in 2005 and allowed users to record their web clickstream and upload that information to Attention Trust. Since then, the term has been championed by Last.fm. They positioned themselves as “Musical Myware” as a way of describing the process by which user’s music listening habits were automatically recorded and uploaded to Last.fm, who used the data for personalised music recommendations. Other uses of the term include time tracking application companies that describe themselves as myware to explain the automatic recording of PC activities for billing.

Data collected by myware products typically includes: keystrokes, internet browsing patterns, web sites visited and the use of certain applications, such as music players for Last.fm. In each case, the user must choose to install the myware application and derive some benefit from the data recorded. This distinguishes myware from the more traditional spyware. However, there remains controversy over whether individual myware applications are really to the benefit of the user, particularly in cases where the user does not have editing access to the data recorded about themselves.