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?"

Comments

Informed?

[Renraku]

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!"

PRIVATE MEMBER'S BILL

[child_of_mercy]

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.