My take on all this is that it'll all stop when it starts to hurt the firms that are paying for the advertising. I bet Sony will never think about installing rootkits again, because the publicity hurt them in the pocket. In the same way, if it started to become known that certain companies are using these methods to sell their products then we need to stop buying their products. They claim that they don't know that these methods are being used, I say they darn well ought too. If they're too stupid to know how their advertising dollars are being spent then they don't deserve to be in business anyway. But whether they know or not, they don't deserve any of my money.