Your PC under attack?

CNET has a good summary of current arguments about government regulation of adware, spyware and other surreptitious programs.

However, after years of chances and failures, anti-regulatory dogma regarding the Internet has worn thin. People are becoming increasingly fed up with companies that seek to entrench themselves deep within the viscera of their PCs, and each violation of their trust by short-lived start-ups makes it more difficult for legitimate businesses to win back their confidence.

I've been feeling the pain of this with my recent download of RealOne, which has sucked up more file associations than I want. So far I've been unable to find a permanent solution and I'm one of the consumers who actually knows where to find the folder options that control associations in Windows XP.