The Pure Software Act of 2006

lurker412 writes "The MIT Technology Review features a proposal by Simson Garfinkel to provide honest labels on software in the same way that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 forced manufacturers of foods and drugs to divulge the contents of their products. The proposal targets adware, spyware and other unsavory practices. It suggests that by requiring software manufacturers to include clear icons for each nasty behavior--rather than hide the disclosures in seldom read or understood click-through SLAs--end users will be better protected. Garfinkel specifically lists eight types of sneaky behavior, but the list is not meant to be exhaustive."

Comments

Re:The 'Evil' Bit

[Rick and Roll]

You speak as if Apple are saints. Quicktime is actually one of my favorite examples of malware. In the version I used, that is still installed on many school computers, it associates its ActiveX control and plug-in with .png's. Then you have a terribly scaled bitmap, that you can't get back to its normal size, without having the problem that you can't scroll to the areas that do not fit in the screen. It makes browsing some sites in their intended form impossible.

Plus Apple participates in the bad software patent practices that discourage freedom and innovation. And they claimed to support fair use, but turned their back on it with ITMS. They are not a nice company.