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Anti-Spyware Bill up for Vote in Congress
paul_friedman writes "According to Reuters - The U.S. House of Representatives will vote as soon as next week on a measure to crack down on deceptive "spyware" that hides in users' computers and secretly monitors their activities."
A lot of these programs do tell you that they are going to load Gator or some other piece of sh*tware. However, it is buried in the middle of the EULA which most people "pagedown" through rather than read 10 or 15 screens of fine type legalese. I do read them or at least scan them for the part about giving me even more
"free productivity"
software. This legislation like the spam legislation (CanSpam), will simply embolden those who have been hesitant. Now that they can legally load your system up with spyware as long as tell you somewhere, no matter how hard it would be to actually find it, they will do so. I just wonder what these politicians are smoking when they come up with these "solutions."-erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I would be prudent to put spyware in diebold's voting machines though.,.
"It's not like your minds are as open as the source you love..." - Me to the majority of Slashdot.
As if the people who write spyware care about the law and doing what's right
It's probably going to be as effective as the CANSPAM act.
How are they going to nail people in Russia and China?
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More useless laws that can not be enforced.
Just like attempts to make P2P filesharing illegal, it will be virtually impossible to regulate or control.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Nice, more unenforceable legislation. Go Congress!
Isn't this already illegal? Lately I'm afraid of legislation banning things that are already illegal. Take the DMCA, for instance; copyright violations were already punishable, but all of a sudden a whole slough of other things are, too.
I say, let's strengthen our ability to enforce laws we already have on fraud and invasion of privacy. It seems new laws, making more things illegal will simply become another "gotcha" for folks using legitimate software.
There is really nothing that can be done. It is called social engineering. The end user does let them into the computer, not by choice, just by staight ignorance. This is just another set of laws that will mean nothing.
Might not solve it, but at least people will know it exists.
/.er'. What is spyware for you and I might not even be spyware for them. There are people who willing install Bonzi Buddy on their systems because its cute but I would not touch it with a ten feet pole.
And there probably lies the difference between 'average person' and 'average
And if these legislators were even half serious, their act should have included not the installation but the 'uninstallation' part. A lot of programs/utilities/helpers capture sensitive information (Google Toolbar anyone?) but the difference lies in getting the crap out of somebody's machine. Anybody who ever had to use HijackThis to figure out the fscking process eating up your machine knows what I am talking about.
Till then, just another stupid law and the life continues as always.
Free XBox, PS2
What really needs to be done: have the gov't put in place a formal pricipal that states THIS. Maybe then they'd actually accomplish something.
I think governments really have more important things to think about than spyware and spam - oh, I don't know... wars, the economy, health care, education, ways to spend the money they make off the tobacco industry for everything possible except for the health issues they are saying they nede the money to pay for...
If someone installs spyware it is their fault. Nothing is free on a Windows machine. Take some personal responsibility for jebus sake.
Here's a question. Why are all the spyware programs written for Windows rather than Mac or Linux. There are perfectly good freeware programs for the other OSs and they aren't laden with the crap?
Not a damned thing...
they do tell you that their stuff is being installed. it's in the EULA for whatever program you actually wanted to install, that it hitchiked in with...
Word to the wise: if there is more than one EULA, then there's probably spyware. if there's only one, read the bloody thing...
Being the honest, law abiding, trustworthy corps these spyware companies are. I'm sure they will comply! Expecially when the law in question will be virtually uninforcable. We can trust them! Really!
As many others have pointed out, this will probably be as effective as a law as CAN-SPAM was. What they really need to do is to make it illegal for companies to profit from the selling of the data that these spyware/adware programs collect.
They don't care about controlling problems - they just want to look like they're doing something about an issue.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
that guarantees X amount of money to be put into enforcement/education efforts against existing cybercrime?
We don't need any more laws. We need law enforcement of existing laws. The current anti-computer tampering laws are effective in most cases.
Just like can-spam. Because they make it too complicated. It is really a case of illegal electronic surveillance, just like an illegal wiretap. You shouldn't be allowed to do it without a court order. The last I heard that was already a felony.
As usual they would rather pass a new pile of crap than enforce whats already on the books.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.