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Spyware Notification Bill Introduced

Posted by michael on from the click-here-to-give-up-first-born-son dept.

cheinonen writes "According to this article at News.com, Rep. Mary Bono has introduced a bill that would require software manufacturers to notify you if they plan to install spyware on your machine. I might not be a legal genius, but won't they just get around this by noting this in the EULA, which many people already do, since you're supposedly required to read and agree to that anyway? Will this bill do anything at all?"

2 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. The Benefit would be... by gartogg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That if it's a self installer, and It dpesn't com packaged with another application, It would need to pop up a Window. This in itself would slow the spywear installation trend.

    And no-one would mind a lawsuit for no-compliance... except the bastards who are trying to invade our computers in the first place.

    --
    I'm a concientious .sig objector.
  2. See: Tobacco and Alcohol labeling. by jfisherwa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they made it similar to the Surgeon General's Warning on tobacco and alcohol products, whereby the company basically gets to choose from a number of straightforward preset messages that must be displayed as prominently as the company logo and be at least %n as large, I think we could have a winnner.

    WARNING: This software includes "spyware," which when installed will grant us access to track all of your web viewing habits.