The news of Intel's $7.68 billion acquisition of McAfee was a bit of a surprise to many of us, and the vague justifications both sides offered for the deal largely focused on the proliferation of mobile devices. However, I couldn't help but think of another implication of this acquisition for the traditional PC market. Buying McAfee instantly makes Intel one of the leading perpetrators of the pay-for-play bloatware model that infects brand-new PCs from nearly all of the major vendors with heaping amounts of unnecessary software.

With McAfee purchase, Intel could become #1 bloatware vendor