The viewpoint software you received either comes with certain features of your machine already installed or was installed by someone using your machine. The Viewpoint Media Player is a plug-in that enables the viewing of 3D content on the internet. It is akin to products such as Macromedia's flash player (www.macromedia.com/flash) and Apple's Quicktime (www.apple.com/quicktime). Just like these products, it is a plug-in that enables extremely immersive multimedia experiences on websites with animation, sound, and video. But beyond these products, the viewpoint media player also has the capability for fully interactive 3D (virtual reality -- like a video game). It is also the engine that drives AOL's 3D Super Buddies, AOL Instant Messenger Themes and many popular web applications such as Scion's car configurator(http://www.scion.com/scion/bys/main.do). The Viewpoint Media Player and Manager is bundled with AOL, AIM, versions of Netscape, certain Adobe products and most retail computers sold today.

If they were not already on your machine from the delivery methods described above, then neither the viewpoint search bar nor the viewpoint media player plugin can install themselves on your machine without the permission of someone using your computer -- EVER. Neither the viewpoint media player plug-in nor the toolbar are spyware. Many programs run on people's machines every day that they are not aware of and that power certain features on their system that are not spyware. If you were to scan your system using most anti-spyware programs such as "Ad Aware" or "Spybot Search and Destroy", our software would not be detected because it is on their white lists. We, like you, find spyware to be reprehensible and stand firmly behind our commitment to no spyware (see link "our position on spyware": http://www.viewpoint.com/pub/privacy_commitment.html).

We understand that many people become nervous when they see software on their machine from a company they're not aware of which is why we keep a very open and honest dialog about this on our website (try going to the website of any spyware company and see if you can have an open and honest dialog with them about their software). As a rule of thumb, just because you are not familiar with certain software running on your machine does not mean it is spyware (if you looked in your processes list in "Task Manager" on your machine right now you would see MANY softwares running on your machine that you may not be familiar with but that are most likely perfectly legit). Personally, whenever I see processes on my machine I'm not familiar with I look it up in the WinTasks process library. The WinTasks process library is an independent website that keeps track of processes so people can know what's running on their machine. Their main website is at http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary. If you look up our process "ViewMgr.exe" in the WinTasks library, you find this description: http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/ViewMgr/.

Lastly, we will provide here a detailed description on how to completely remove viewpoint software from your machine. If, after following these instructions, you believe remnants of the software remain, please email us at support@viewpoint.com and we will be more than happy to work with you to resolve the matter.


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UNINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Close all your Internet Explorer windows
1.b. If by chance you also have AOL and or AIM installed on your computer, then you must also close their windows
2. Open "Add or Remove Programs" in your Control Panel window (found in Start>Settings>Control Panel)
3. Find the Viewpoint Toolbar entry and click the "Change/Remove" button. All associated files and folders will be removed from your computer.
4. Repeat the above step for the viewpoint media player if it is on your machine.

Please note: If you have any browser windows open during the uninstall, you may still see the Toolbar in those windows. Any new browser windows opened after the uninstall is complete will not show the toolbar.
Also, Viewpoint software is installed through applications such as AOL or AIM and if you have them on your machine, they will re-install the viewpoint media player because it is a necessary component for their operation.

If you have any problems uninstalling the software, please send an email to support@viewpoint.com and we'll work with you to make sure that the software uninstalls correctly.

We apologize for any inconvenience the installation of our software may have caused you. Please feel free to contact us if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Viewpoint Support

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