Microsoft acted quickly to dispel speculation that it gave preferential treatment to Claria after it was in reportedly acquisition talks with the adware maker.After a report surfaced earlier this month that Microsoft downgraded the threat level of Claria from “Quarantine” to “Ignore” and noted reports that Microsoft was in talks to acquire Claria, Microsoft responded quickly.Microsoft published a lenghtly response, saying that although no exceptions were made in Claria’s case, “adjustments should be made to the classification of Claria software in order to be fair and consistent with how Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) handles similar software from other vendors.” The case drew some wary reactions from bloggers on Slashdot.org.But Microsoft said it has strict criteria in place to judge threat levels. In its response, Microsoft said in part:“…We received some questions around Microsoft’s classification of Claria software in our Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (Beta). We wanted to take this op-portunity to clear up any misconceptions and explain our current policies and practices. “As you may know, the analysis of software is based on a single set of objective criteria, which can be found on our web site: Windows AntiSpyware (Beta): Analysis approach and categories.“Microsoft offers all software companies the opportunity to request a review of how Microsoft classifies their products through our vendor dispute process,” Microsoft said in its response. “In January, Claria filed a request for Microsoft to reevaluate some of its products. Upon review of their software against our criteria, we determined that continued detection of Claria’s products was indeed appropriate. We also decided that adjustments should be made to the classification of Claria software in order to be fair and consistent with how Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) handles similar software from other vendors. At the end of March, we communicated to Claria the result of our analysis through our standard process.“We take software analysis for Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) very seriously and handle all vendor requests in the same manner. All software is reviewed under the same objective criteria, detection policies, and analysis process,” Microsoft said. “Absolutely no exceptions were made for Claria. Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) continues to notify our users when Claria software is found on a computer, and it offers our users the option to remove the software if they desire.” Security