I've seen that described by others here at Mudcat. Good luck getting rid of it. I use Ad-Aware, and it will identify and quarantine programs like you are experiencing. You can get a free copy of Ad-Aware here or Spybot Search and Destroy.
My programs were running a bit slow this morning, and I recall one popup on the firewall saying a program was trying to access the internet. I'd just started something else, so thought it was the program I was using. Makes me wonder if these spy programs aren't bright enough to do just that, not make a move outward until they can piggyback on another program? Anyway, Ad-Aware found that nasty little spy ALEXA in my system. What's extremely disappointing is that Alexa is owned by Amazon. It seems redundant to sic a spyware program on me--I spend so much at Amazon anyway, they KNOW my Internet shopping habits!
This is from their security statement:
"ALEXA COLLECTS AND STORES INFORMATION ABOUT THE WEB PAGES YOU VIEW, THE DATA YOU ENTER IN ONLINE FORMS AND SEARCH FIELDS WHILE USING THE ALEXA SOFTWARE, AND, WITH VERSIONS 5.0 AND HIGHER OF THE BROWSER COMPANION SOFTWARE, THE PRODUCTS YOU PURCHASE ONLINE. ALTHOUGH ALEXA DOES NOT ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE WEB USAGE DATA TO DETERMINE THE IDENTITY OF ANY ALEXA USER, SOME INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THE SOFTWARE IS PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE. ALEXA AGGREGATES AND ANALYZES THE INFORMATION IT COLLECTS TO IMPROVE ITS SERVICE AND TO PREPARE REPORTS ABOUT AGGREGATE WEB USAGE AND SHOPPING HABITS."
Good luck, Harpgirl! In your shoes, first thing I would do is download Ad-Aware and let it get to work. You'll appreciate that cartoonish "sproing" sound it uses to announce that it is finished searching your computer!