My company paid a large sum of money so we could publish in Viewpoint content, and I am really very happy with viewpoint technology.

I was really shocked to see that viewpoint has decided to become a spyware/adware company and throw all that goodwill away. Autoloading a toolbar is a 100% guaranteed way to anger paying customers, and I would like to ask that it stops immediatly.

My guess is that 90% of the people who have spent many hours learing viewpoint technology feel the same way.

John Hoge
SeaEagle.com

Dear John,

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 a users machine from the delivery methods described above, then neither the viewpoint search bar nor the viewpoint media player plugin can install themselves on the users machine without the permission of someone using the 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/.

Regards,
Viewpoint Support

It seems that Viewpoint takes a very literal definition of "Spyware". Just because an unintended download doesn't steal credit card numbers doesn't make it OK.

My system had a media player on it, which I installed to.... play 3d media. I did not intend to install a toolbar, adware, or anything that would push a toolbar on me. I wanted to display 3d content, so I installed a plugin to do so.

Leveraging this installed base to push software on people is, in my mind, a breach of trust with the user. Never mind the legalese in the EULA, nobody reads that anyway. Most people think that software should do what it says it does.

Changing these understood rules violates user trust, and damages the reputation of your fine company.

Viewpoint has the best 3D presentation technolgy in the world. It has been a pleasure working with your tech support and sales staff, who have been very professional and helpful.

You're a great company. Why do you want become a bottomfeeding adware pusher?

John,

We value your patronage and appreciate your feedback. I may not have answered you exactly as I mistakenly answered more to the question of how the VMP gets on one's machine to begin with. However, I see you are more concerned with the install process for the toolbar. Rest assured we have received much feedback from users (some courteous, some not so courteous :-) ) on the toolbar and its install process. This feedback has been valuable in both helping us improve the toolbar as a product offering, and the install process itself. We have therefore come up with a new version of the installer notification messages which are much clearer. The new default popup window for the VMP installer has a check box directly on it and clearly states that by checking the box users will get the toolbar as well (see attached). We will also be updating the system tray notification to be much clearer.

Currently, we've been fielding calls for two different concerns:

1) users who never knew they had the VMP on their machine in the first place and then received the system tray notification. For these users, we simply explain they had the VMP all along and nothing has changed -- only that we're making ourselves more known through branding (which was a game we long had to catch up on with our competitors such as Quicktime, Flash, Windows Media, and Real).

2) experienced VMP users who thought by clicking "Update" they would only update their VMP. As I said, we are making this clearer now. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this caused for our valued customers and developers such as yourself and we are confident the next round of notification messages will be more satisfying.

Nothing could be further from our mind than becoming, as you said, a "bottom feeding adware company." The toolbar is an extension of the VMP and takes direct advantages of its capabilities. It gives VET more exposure and there are big plans for it (can't say more right now). We just have to make sure this exposure is positive and feedback such as yours helps with that immensely! We also continue to focus on the VMP and are making improvements that we are sure will have users and developers such as yourself very excited. Two of the biggest developments are the new authoring environment we will be releasing for developing VET content and the new VMP complete with VETScript!

The new authoring environment (name is still classified) will be on par with programs such as Flash for ease of authoring content. You could say it's our answer to Macromedia's Flash authoring software! It will be a completely stand-alone, robust application for authoring VET content. Developers will be able to purchase the software and then publish unlimited content from the software! This is more in tune with how popular platforms such as Flash work. When you see the software, we are sure you will be very pleased. It makes authoring VET content infinitely easier by making child’s play out of basic VET tasks and frees-up the developer to focus on more advanced content authoring. But rest assured, people that already purchased broadcast licenses will still be able to use them.

The next big development will be the new VMP that will ship with the authoring software and will have the new VETScript scripting language. This scripting language is exactly the same as javascript or actionscript, but runs directly in the VMP player! ;-) I've already been testing it out and the power it brings to the VET developer is unprecedented.

Thank you again for your feedback and concerns! Keep them up! We listen more than you may realize!

Regards,
Viewpoint Support

vmp_popup.jpg (20 KB, 160 downloads) New VMP Popup Window

John,
You are absolutely correct.
In order to participate in a Webinar, I had to install Viewpoint.

A couple of days later, while doing a demo in front of a client. The Viewpoint update form came up. There was not option to close the form. My only option was to shut down my computer or install the update. I had to shut down, only to have the darn thing pop up again. I had no option but to install it.

I was completely caught off guard. My clients were not impressed with this Viewpoint "SPYWARE".

And on top of not being able to kill the update, the Toolbar was automatically installed.

Viewpoint, this is completely unacceptable. My first reaction to your company is that you are an unwanted virus. I do not know much about your products, but you can bet that anytime Viewpoint comes up I will always associate it with SpyWare.

I now have to spend my time removing your toolbar from my system.

No Impressed

Hi TMac,

Please see the responses we gave to John above. In the meantime, until the new system tray popup message is released, you would have been able to decline by clicking on the "more info" link in the popup message.

Regards,
Viewpoint Support