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" Kaspersky should be worried about what Russia sells to authoritarian regimes... "

I'm sure they are.

So... anyway. Hacking Team should understand (and maybe they do), privacy advocates advocate privacy -- trojans and spyware aim to erode user's privacy no matter who is operating it. Privacy advocates don't go for that waffle-y "Oh well, these inalienable rights need to be 'balanced' against these other things the gov't want to do to^H^H for you." Really, it's as simple as that.

I don't judge Hacking Team TOO harshly -- they are restraining from selling their products directly to people or groups planning to make criminal use of it (for example, they are not selling directly to groups planning to use it just to skim off credit card numbers and banking info... which MANY spyware authors do). And, they may think that selling this spyware to governments is doing some kind of good. Right or wrong, some people really believe in giving the gov't a strong hand and assume that this power won't go to their head as it were. Don't get me wrong, I am a privacy advocate so I vehemently oppose their actions, but I can see where Hacking Teams' objections are coming from.