FTC Officials Wary of Spyware Measures

Nofsck Ingcloo writes "News.com is reporting thusly: 'Two Federal Trade Commission officials ignited a political firestorm on Thursday by criticizing proposed laws targeting spyware and suggesting that the measures might harm legitimate software products, too.' During an appearance before a House of Representatives panel, FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson said the measures were the wrong approach to spyware and adware. Basically he is advocating a 'don't throw the baby out with the bath water' approach."

Comments

Re:Wonder how much...

[sohojim]

Actually, FTC Commissioners are appointed, not elected, according to this page:

http://www.ftc.gov/bios/commissioners.htm

I don't think government employees can accept "contributions" from companies -- granted, that's just for "over the table" contributions.

What's funny is that the Trade Commissioner listed after Mozelle on this page is named "Orson Swindle."

Basically he is advocating a 'don't throw the baby

[eclectro]

Basically he is advocating a 'don't throw the baby out with the bath water' approach."

In this case the baby is green, has 10 eyes, keeps track of your every move, spits in your face with ads, and is guaranteed to wreck your house.

So you do toss the baby out with the bathwater. Otherwise you have a monster on your hands.

Some call him Gator

Re:Not all 'adware' is bad

[kinema]

"Personally, I love "adware" such as New.Net and don't understand what the big deal is about. New.Net is simply a new approach to domain registration and lookup, and a clever one at that. If New.Net is what we're talking about when we say "adware" - then sign me up for more!"

This post has been brought to you by the fine folks at New.Net.

FUD ALERT

[Mr Guy]

This is typical privacy nut FUD. For example, Gator only has EIGHT eyes, and he can't possibly keep track of your every move because sometimes he's slowing down your internet connection when he secretly downloads ads, and other times he's busy crashing your computer. Do you really think he can download ads, crash your computer, AND track you all at the same time?

Yeah I didn't think so tinfoil man.

In other news...

[TrentL]

Mozelle is going to change his name to Firefred.

Let's jail the computers!

[jasonbrown]

hmmmmm..... they think the can just pass a law and stop this stuff. "Honey, I bet if we pass a law I can get this monkey off of my computer! Plus, we gain even MORE control over what people can do with their computers. PERFECT!"

Maybe these lawmakers should just throw their own computers in prison. A computer is cheaper to maintain in a cell (no need for food, water, and exercise). Plus *POOF*, their problem goes away. No more adware! Hell no more viruses or evil hackers either! Their computer can be in prison with all the rest of the evil non-violent offenders! They can come visit it when they need to use Word

Hell you can even stack all the congressmans and senator's computers in a couple cells I bet ya! Simple solution. Cost effective!

Really I think that people with that little knowledge of computers have no business passing laws about computers. Ridiculous. Do you take your computer to a lawyer to have it fixed?????

DDoS anybody?

[Bimo_Dude]

It may be possible to use the Spyware against the companies that create it... we can just get everybody in the world to open wide their firewalls, install Windows with no hotfixes or service packs, and let it rip.

Viola! the Spyware makers will DDoS themselves when all these systems are phoning home.