EZula has also ridden the wave of the post-Napster downturn. EZula's TopText program inserts its own text advertisements as pop-ups linked to highlighted words in a Web page. EZula began partnering with KaZaA and other file-sharing companies a few months ago. Now, 20 to 40 percent of the company's new installations come via file-sharing applications, says Assaf Henkin, one of the San Francisco start-up's co-founders. "And within that range KaZaA is responsible for the majority of the users," he adds.

OnFlow, which offers a "rich media" plug-in similar to Macromedia's Flash, reports that it has also benefited from the popularity of KaZaA and other file-sharing companies. Ditto for Webhancer and New.net.

But the ultimate benefactor may be the two Dutch developers behind KaZaA. They launched the program in September 2000. They started with no venture capital and for eight months supported the company with their own funds. Then, in May, they released a new version of KaZaA. Word of its improvements started to spread, the software moved up the charts at Download.com and KaZaA's founders finally got what they wanted -- "enough volume to be interesting," Zennstrom says. In other words, they became popular enough to attract the plug-in parasite posse.

Once KaZaA became "a pretty hot app," says Linton at Webhancer, they became an obvious choice for bundling. "We partnered with them in June," he says.

Others came on board around the same time. And the results have proven lucrative. Zennstrom claims that KaZaA isn't just surviving, it's also profiting.

"Bundles are vital," he explains. "KaZaA is free software so money has to come from somewhere."

Sometime soon, every file-sharing application will have some sort of payment mechanism, predicts Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet. Some, like Freenet, will ask for donations of actual cash, but "for those that focus on MP3 distribution, the model of plug-ins and advertising is a positive initial option to look into."

New file-sharing companies go even further, arguing that the mix of plug-ins and advertising should be accepted as the norm. "All file-sharing clients must add these types of revenue generators at some point," says Henry Wilson, founder of Grokster.com, a swapping client that taps into KaZaA's network, and which just launched a beta version with EZula attached. "We think this is a small price to pay for the ability to have free access to the files that are shared on Grokster."

Privacy advocates and a vocal but small minority of file-sharing users disagree. They see these programs as Trojan horses, gifts that enter a hard drive, work in the background and threaten to topple people's computers. Sure, these companies claim that the software never sends back personal information; and yes, their privacy policies have approval from TRUSTe and other privacy watchdogs.

For some software executives, violating people's privacy would be the kiss of death to their business plans.

"The business and technology reasons for not developing such a system should be pretty obvious," says Radiate's Jeff Ready. "First, we make money when people use our software. The amount of money we make is dictated by the number of people that use our software. Clearly, if our software really did all this spying, very few people would use it, and we would make no money. It's pretty straightforward."

"But just because they aren't currently releasing personally identifiable information doesn't mean it doesn't have that capability, or is readily adaptable to do so," says Michael Allen, a security manager and a regional ISP.

KaZaA, by forcing people to download Cydoor's software along with its own, ups the ante of risk, others argue.

"If the only way that file-sharing companies can survive is through inducing consent, then maybe they don't deserve to survive," says Lauren Weinstein, creator of the Privacy Forum, a digest of privacy issues. "Their actions are completely inappropriate." Weinstein also noted that the only ultimate solution to the privacy problem will be legal restrictions on what kind of information software programs can transmit back and forth from your computer to the Web.

A few file-sharing software companies seem to agree. MusicCity's Morpheus software, which is built on the same software engine that powers KaZaA, comes without plug-ins and is the most popular audio option at Download.com. LimeWire, a Gnutella client, and a few other Napster replacements have also avoided using plug-ins.

But KaZaA argues that Cydoor is harmless: "The ONLY thing the Cydoor component does is to fetch banners from an ad server, and display them on the KaZaA program, very much the same as a normal Web page," Zennstrom says. But most of the company's competitors -- BearShare and AudioGalaxy, for example -- still include only one or two plug-ins.

"A lot of these companies struggle to find the balance," says Naider at WhenU.com. "They don't want to scare off their users."

Overwhelming users with plug-ins does appear to be a potential problem. More than 20 people who reviewed KaZaA on Download.com slammed the company for including so many plug-ins, and several recommended boycotting the company because of its bundled software.

But are the plug-in protesters part of the problem? If the parasites don't pay, who will?

Naider figures that the move toward plug-ins shows that the Net is finally growing up. "The Internet is the only place in history where great stuff was given away for free," he says. "What's happening now is that the Net is returning to a model where good products -- content or software -- have a price. If the price isn't in money, then the price comes in the form of bundled software."

Perhaps critics who have a problem with extra plug-ins, particularly ad-serving plug-ins, ought to take up their complaints with consumers, he adds. "We're not like that. We're the ones who let great free software continue to be free."

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