Of all the things that Gator (and its ilk) did, the worst may have been how they corrupted the file download process.

Click download and you get...who knows what?

Now Yahoo, desperate to catch up with Google, has corrupted the downloading of basic Web tools, by sticking its toolbar in with Macromedia Flash.

The attempts by Macromedia officials like John Dowdell (right) to explain this away speaks to a growing lack of ethics within the Internet business community.

Macromedia Flash is used nearly universally. Many sites don't run without it. The idea of going without this plug-in is, for many people, unthinkable.

But if Macromedia wants to corrupt this download by adding someone else's stuff, a lot of people are not going to upgrade. And the Web experience becomes weaker as a result.

John Dowdell of Macromedia was quite frank in stating this was a business decision:

The stock valuations of search engines are enormous — they have a lot (a lot!) more money than software companies — and they’ll pay to increase their connection with consumers. For my own part, I like shifting some of the revenue sources from software packages to consumers, indirectly through placement like this... feels more democratic to me, but that’s a personal feeling, and I don’t know about others at Macromedia. Regardless, a deal has to work for everyone to be any good, long-term.

It should not be necessary for those of us who expect ethical behavior to police greed, but Macromedia has now (once again) made it necessary.

This deal is not good for everyone. No one outside Macromedia was consulted. Dowdell's statements are self-serving at best.

Don't upgrade Flash.