Though there are great free programs to rid a computer of these foul programs .What I consider, illegal hijacking of a person computer. There should be laws against this, with those companies engaging in this tactic fined heavily and shut down if it continues. It's an invasion of privacy, as well as malicious tampering with ones computer.
It seems to me that when a computer is infested with malware, becomes unusable, and the user has lost productivity, costing them money AND possibly service calls, the advertisers, or manufacturers of the malware should be liable for actual and punative damages.
I know of a company that had critical data on a computer that was infested. I couldn't just wipe the drive and then reinstall everything. I had to remove the hard drive, install it as a secondary drive, and clean it, save her data, then wipe and reinstall her OS and applications. She was without her computer for two days, and the service cost her about $1200. Her lost productivity probably cost her over two thousand dollars as well.
If we can't hold them legally liable, there should be some sort of justifiable clause in the assault laws, where it's OK if you can prove somebody is behind the malware, you can beat the crap out of them!
Mark