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Anti-Spyware Bill up for Vote in Congress

Posted by samzenpus on from the but-I-love-ads dept.

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."

7 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Won't this legalize Spyware? by erick99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The bill approved by Barton's committee would require software makers to notify people before loading new programs on their machines that can collect information about them. Violators could face millions of dollars in fines.

    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/
  2. Oh whatever by screwedcork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As if the people who write spyware care about the law and doing what's right

  3. Yeah,Sure by rainman_bc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's probably going to be as effective as the CANSPAM act.

    How are they going to nail people in Russia and China?

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  4. politicians and technology do not mix by loose+electron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  5. Isn't this already illegal? by halivar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:NO! by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Insightful
    80% of what I do at work is cleaning spyware. I would be out of a job if it stopped existing.
    Then, you are a part of the problem. Vested interests that benefit from the status quo.
  7. Sorry but by needacoolnickname · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?