This has just happened to me as well. I have happily been using GoogleEarth and suddenly I get the exact same error message as has been posted. I am using Sygate Personal Firewall - checked it and GoogleEarth is allowed - and I use Webroot Spy Sweeper. Maybe that is somehow the issue, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to configure Spy Sweeper or even to see what it considers spyware.

The question is, where from here? And why can't any of this help stuff be in a form that the lay user can understand, anyway?