People need to stop calling it (just) stalkerware and call it what it obviously is: malware. It's no different from any other form of malware. Just the criminals are probably people you know rather than online opportunists.
You seem to think that "malware" sounds worse and somehow more specific than "stalkerware". Stalkerware sounds like a more nefarious subset of malware, and I'm not sure what conflating a more specific term into a less specific one achieves
I might be slightly younger, but under the meaning I remember, almost every website today would qualify as running spyware. Google Analytics is spyware.
This kind of stalker app reminds me of remote administration tools. They had another name, I don't remember what it was.
Different connotations, I think - I don't consider spyware to be targeted, it's more of a "send it to everyone and hope you get some juicy info on someone", whereas stalkerware makes it clear it's for specifically targeting individuals.
Could do. I guess I’d associate that with mass surveillance against many targets who aren’t know to the attacker? Stalkerware felt sufficiently evocative