All we're talking about is standards. (Score 1)

And that's not just for internet or even computer business. The most powerful force the consumer has is the ability to demand and make use of labelling. It doesn't necessarily need to be enforced. If an independant body(no not M$, their standards are only ever going to be self serving) rates products on relevant features - for software, say privacy, reliability, advertising issues etc. - and allow manufacturers to display their logo if they display the relevant labelling. A critical point is that the logo must be heavily advertised in order to make it well known. Once consumers get into the mindset that they can only trust software with that logo then everyone has to get it on their product. If everyone gets it on their product they are forced to disclose the fact that their software is spyware etc. or become an untrusted and quickly unprofitable company. This is simple, you don't need to know what a .dll is or a registry setting, you just need to know that your chosen piece of software was cleared as a reliable install. This is not just good for consumers because it gives them confidence in the software they install, it would be a massive boon to the shareware/small commercial software industry. I work for someone who takes every opportunity to pay through the nose for MS software simply because he trusts it. Breaking the MS monopoly relies on consumers being able to have confidence in non-MS software - what I'm saying is that good software vendors would find it in their interest to support and even pay for such a standard. And no doubt their already exist a number of shareware standards of practice but they need to achieve visibility and credibility and then things could be different.