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Australia Says No To Spyware
PrivateDonut writes "Australian parliament introduced a bill on Thursday that would 'make it illegal for anyone to install a program without informed approval and attract a fine of $10,000.' Is this doomed to fail as many other anti-spam/spyware bills have failed? Or has Australia finally hit the mark?"
If this were in the US, 'informed' would mean "Well, he was getting great offers..so in effect..we're practically putting money in his pocket!"
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
computer criminals have been extradited.. and it is sometimes possible to follow revenue streams and such depending on the exact wording on the bill.
I disagree. The biggest problem with spyware is how it trashes people's machines. Whether a program sends "personal" (debatable whether the data is usually personalized) information over the Net beyond its stated intention is secondary to a machine that has been rendered unuseable.
Users only care about what they experience, and that happens to be computers that don't function. I don't spend hours slaving away trying to prevent personal information from being sent over the Net, I spend hours slaving away to rid friends' computers of "spyware" viruses that conveniently install themselves and break the operating system.
Having a decent application firewall is a solid preventative for spyware. Spyware can only be of value if it can report back the data it collects.
XP has an "incoming" application firewall - it would be of greater value if it had outgoing controls too.
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"Do you really think there will be extradition for installing Spyware?"
IIRC Australia has extradited an Australian citizin from a large warez group to the US for copyright after relasing Windows 95 or something.
Not really.
The Democrats are fairly impotent - the chance of any of their collective private members getting up in Au is pretty slim.
A _slight_ difference between someone being fined $10k and you being paid $10k. OTOH, if you live in Australia, the money goes to the State - and you are the State! So, you do get the money.
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
Ummm... you're right. But you're not reading between the lines.
The main "purpose" of these laws in Australia is to allow the executive arm of government to make treaties with other countries to deal with these problems.
In Australia, the government cannot domestically ratify a treaty unless
1. it passes a law through Parliament (which is uncertain because Bills can be rejected); or
2. the executive makes regulations to give effect to the treaty (which is immediate)
SO...
IF
there was no Spam Act 2003 or no Spyware Bill
THEN
Australia could not easily ratify international agreements
Furthermore, a lot of Asian countries copy Australian law. Therefore, it provides an example for them and they usually do the same.
OK, I relaise that very few people understand Australian Parliamentary procedure (including whoever posted this)
This is a Private Senator's Bill which means it is going no-where in our system.
Even more irrelevant is it's introduction by the Australian Democrats, a fringe party in the process of disapearing completely.
(proving that having progressive ideas about computers is no guarantor of electoral success)
Very, very rarely a Government will look at a Private Bill, say "hey that's a good idea" and then re-introduce it as a Government Bill (yes, about three years ago a PMB was passed into law but it was notable for being an exception).
That's the day for headline stories on Slashdot.
Even if the proposals in the Bill are workable (enough spyware is made by companies operating in Australia to have some enforceable merit) the Bill itself is not likely to become Law.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
People seem to assume that laws should only be enacted if they can "perfectly" prevent what is made illegal. People then seem to say a law that doesn't perfectly prevent the act that is made illegal is a waste of time.
Laws don't work that way.
Prevention of "illegal acts" is actually an intended side effect of the law. Murder, for example, is commonly prevented because of the consequences of the laws against murder, not purely because of the existance of the law itself. The significant punishment for murder hopefully makes people think twice about committing it. Of course, people sometimes still commit murder, irrespective of the law against it. Murder could be declared illegal, with no punishment attached. Law abiding people should therefore not commit it, however the significant punishment attached is what gives the law it's "teeth".
Laws primary goal is to create a significant level of discouragment to commit the illegal act. In most cases, that discouragement then has a resultant effect of preventing most cases occuring. Laws are actually a form of behaviour control.
Laws such as this one are an attempt to make spyware authors think twice about creating it. It certainly won't perfectly eliminate it. However, if there is a significant reduction in spyware, then the law can be considered to be effective.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Australia is not America - the Democrats are a minor party and fading fast, and all members of both houses of parliament are required to vote on party lines. They don't get a choice. In other words this Bill is probably going nowhere. The Democrats may continue to hold onto the title of "most important minor party" but they're rapidly losing even that honour to the Greens. Introducing bills like this is political posturing pure and simple - they're rarely taken up and can sit in the lists for years. The minor parties and independants, particularly the Dems, were once important as the two major parties rarely had a simple senate majority - the minors could use their votes as bargaining chips to get their own agendas some real attention. That's no longer an option - Little Johnny will have his senate majority from July 1 and can do whatever the hell he wants. Now would be a good time to move to New Zealand. That doesn't mean the Democrats, Greens and sundry others don't still have an important role to play in the senate. It just means that they're losing whatever power they once had.