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Net Nanny or Net Bully?

My wife got a tablet for Christmas.

No, it wasn't an all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles top-of-the-line bit of kit from Apple or Samsung -- it was the cheapest bit of kit we could find, a Nextbook with a single-core processor.

It's not going to break any speed records and our kids have already turned up their noses at it saying "that's *so* entry-level mum" -- but it does what she wants, mostly.

To date she's used it primarily for accessing and listening to her talking books (has trouble reading since her accident and brain injury).

I asked her why she didn't use it to check the Net for stuff she was interested in and she told me that this Net Nanny screen keeps popping up every time she tries to go online.

I took a look and, sure enough, web-access was blocked by this crappy Net Nanny app.

What the hell? We never invited anyone to install this piece of ransomware on her tablet so what was it doing there?

And why was it refusing to allow web-access until such time as she signed up and provided some personal information to the Net Nanny website?

We didn't spend good (albeit a small amount of) money on a tablet only to be told we can't use it until we hand over personal details and/or money to disable this malware.

Now I'm a fairly tech-savvy guy so it only took me a couple of minutes to disable this bit of crap -- but what about consumers who have no bleeding idea and eventually just capitulate to the demands being made by the blackmailing SOBs at NetNanny?

Even going to the NetNanny website and reading the uninstall instructions at the bottom of this page would seem to indicate that a special password (not supplied) is required to remove this nagware.

It strikes me that any company which effectively holds the technically naive to ransom by demanding a registration and/or subsequent annual payment must be breaking the law in the same way that they would be if they parked their car across your driveway and demanded to be paid to move it.

This is, of course, not too different to the irritating number of machines that come with a pre-installed "trial" version of Norton (or other) AV software. This stuff cripples the snot out of your machine and I've encountered more than a few occasions when attempts to remove it result in a computer that will no longer boot.

Perhaps it's time NZ invoked some type of legislation that stopped companies from foisting their worthless ransomware crap on unsuspecting computer purchasers who simply find it easier to sign-up and pay-up than to remove it.

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