From John Paczkowski's always entertaining
GSMV:
The first results from Earthlink's SpyAudit are in and they're cause for some dismay. The survey, which which covered 1,062,756 PCs, found 29.5 million instances of spyware, an average of nearly 28 spyware items per computer. Seems not everyone knows about Adaware and Spybot.
I'm a little suspicious of these results. I just ran their scan on my home and office computers. On both machines it claimed - I have Alexa toolbar - among other bits of adware. I ran Spybot, Hijack This and Bazooka spyware scanner. None of them found it. I searched my disks for the tell tale signs - none. My machines have never had Alexa installed on them. Something smells and I think its Earthlink try to sell services.
Ars Technica has similar questions Earthlink spyaudit claims overhyped?