Zonealarm isn't spyware, is it?

Someone told me ZoneAlarm firewall contained spyware, and transmitted lots of information back to their servers. Was he talking out of his cognitive orifice or his fundamental anomaly?

Zone Alarm has a box which OKs sharing your settings. You can choose to check it, which means you're agreeable, or choose not check it, which means you are not agreeable. There is a link for further information that leads to the following:

Sharing your settings with Zone Labs Zone Labs security software users can help shape the future of Zone Labs security products by periodically sending anonymous configuration data to Zone Labs for analysis. By participating in this effort, you can help us focus our attention on the features and services that you use most often and to introduce new functionality that will provide even smarter security.

Configuration data is not collected from ZoneAlarm or ZoneAlarm with Antivirus users.

Even with the "Alert me before I make contact" preference selected in the Overview|Preferences tab, you will not be alerted before sending configuration data to Zone Labs.

The data collected is completely anonymous and is for Zone Labs internal use only and will not be shared with others. Of the millions of Zone Labs security software users, only a small percentage of users will have their information collected. The frequency of data transmission depends upon the configuration of your computer. For most users, data will be sent once per day.

To send configuration data to Zone Labs, select Yes, anonymously share my settings in the Configuration Wizard.

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May be talking about this:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:JcE3JRGvy9IJ:forums.speedguide.net/archive/index.php/t-25971.html+iamdb.rdb&hl=en By coincidence it was referred to recently in another group. Note the date of the article - 03-16-00 ! I would take it with a grain of salt, considering latest versions.