I, Cringely | The Pulpit: Earthlink Wants Total Access (to Your PC)

I, Cringely | The Pulpit: Earthlink Wants Total Access (to Your PC) "Earthlink's pop-up blocker for Windows computers is, in essence, a trojan -- innocent appearing code that carries with some hidden pathogen. Earthlink's Pop-up Blocker may stop any pop-ups from www.bigboobies.com, but it generates its own pop-up ads for Earthlink, itself. But it gets worse. What most people have installed is a beta copy of Pop-up Blocker. Now Earthlink members with Windows comptuers are being told that the beta has expired and they should download the permanent version.
Don't do it.
The so-called "permanent version" is a 14 megabyte suite of applications called Total Access 2003 that replaces your FTP client, your e-mail client, your PPPoE application, your browser preferences, your search engines, and more. It "takes over your computer" on boot-up, according to Earthlink, providing a tool bar and other unwanted, undocumented features."

I guess they're trying to be more like AOL...