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Washington State Outlaws Spyware
An anonymous reader submits "Today, the Governor of Washington signs a a bill outlawing spyware (bill history) which imposes penalties of $100,000 per violation. Spyware is broadly defined. It includes everything from changing a browser's bookmarks or homepage settings, "Opening multiple, sequential, stand-alone advertisements in the owner or operator's internet browser", keystroke-logging, taking over control of the computer, modify its security settings, and even "Falsely representing that computer software has been disabled." But here is my favorite: "Prevent, through intentionally deceptive means, an owner or operator's reasonable efforts to block the installation or execution of, or to disable, computer software by causing the software that the owner or operator has properly removed or disabled automatically to reinstall or reactivate on the computer." Microsoft and Ebay both testified in support of the bill. On May 10th, a similar law banning Internet and email phishing was also passed."
For those that do not follow Washington politics, the Governor's race was very close. A republican won the first count and the first machine re-count. The margin of victory in each was less than 100 votes. On the hand recount, the democratic person won by 142(?) votes. There are some issues about dead people voting, and people voting twice. While the results have been certified, the republican party has taken the case to court. As of today, there is a democratic governor, but how long she will be in power is unknown.
Remember, the CAN-SPAM act revoked all the state's anti-spam laws, including Washington's. I'm a Washington resident and my inbox has more spam than ever since CAN-SPAM passed. "CAN-SPAM" indeed, now they sure can, and with the government's blessing!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
These prohibitions do not apply to any monitoring of a subscriber's internet service by a telecommunications carrier, cable operator, computer hardware or software provider, or provider of information service for network or computer security purposes.
So, when M$ looks at and deletes your files for supposed copyright violations, that's a "security" issue and they are OK. It does not matter that they have all of the other definitions of spyware and are much more invasive, they are a "software provider" doing it for "security".
The definition is so broad that it's hard to imagine who is not a "software provider" doing something for "security". Oh wait, now I know, anyone Microsoft does not like is not a "software provider".
A real spyware law would spank M$, HP and many other "software providers" for all the things this bill legitimately complains about and then allows.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Actually, the Republican party is mostly claiming that felons were illegally voting. The problem is, many of the people the Republicans are claiming are felons - aren't. Most have juvy crimes, which should have been sealed at 18 which did not affect their voting rights. Others, never had their rights removed at all, or had their voting privilages reinstated.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic heartland of King County, 50 valid ballots were found to have never been counted, and are still in their envelopes. What a mess. I just hope my vote isn't one of those 50.
The whole mess has been playing out in the papers for months now, it's getting very old.
Tepp
Here is a Timeline for the events (with an obvious conservative slant).
WA's anti-spam law was useful for the dedicated individuals that took the time to track spam to it's source and file a civil action with the state against them. If you could track them down and you had otherwise fulfilled your own obligations under the law, it was a simple matter to get a $500 judgement in your favor for each actionable missive. Collecting was another matter.
The only real chance for success would be if the spammer were also in Washington.
Like all anti-spam legislation it did require some compliance with legal authority on the part of the spammer. as if someone selling fake Chinese Cialis is worried about legal authority.
The potato it is uninformed.