Team Spybot, the Safer-Networking Ltd. Community
In 2000, while still a student, engineer Patrick Kolla-Ten Venne discovered his PC was infected by the Aureate/Radiate and Conducent TimeSink programs. This invasion of privacy really exasperated him so he wrote a program to remove these infections.
The program was so effective that he made it available for download to others free of charge. This was the start of a world wide campaign to protect the right to privacy on the Internet that was soon to become this young engineer’s main interest and full time job.
The Internet was growing rapidly so a whole community of like-minded people established itself. Their conviction was that ‘Everyone has a right to privacy and to use the Internet without their private information unknowingly being stolen by third parties’.
Soon there was too much work for the young programmer to do on his own, so he formed a company called Safer-Networking Ltd. The aim of this company was to develop and improve Spybot – Search & Destroy as the program was now called. Unlike other software start-ups this was to be non-commercial and was going to be funded by voluntary contributions!
As the spread of malware and spyware increased so did Team Spybot and the Safer-Networking Ltd. community. It was not long before there was a global network of volunteers dedicated to the cause.
This network of volunteers is what allows us to continue to provide our non business users with free software and free access to expert forums. If you agree with our ideals and would like to make a financial contribution to help us fight malware and protect the individuals right to privacy please click here
