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FTC Seeks Anti-Spyware Authority
Zyxwvut writes "The FTC is seeking more legal authority to go after spyware vendors, and Congress has passed a few bills to support them, but the Senate is ignoring them. While the FTC has prosecuted a few of the largest spyware makers, most of them fly under the radar because the FTC has to meet very stringent legal standards before they can do anything."
It's a miracle! Not that they're finally going after spyware, but that some congressmen actually started using the internet and found out what kind of crap you can catch on your computer from it! Yay! I've been waiting for aggressive antispyware legistlation practically since the internet was invented. I really don't care if it puts me out of a job (in home repairer)
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
"Essentially, the FTC wants the ability to impose fines that are not directly tied to consumer loss or company profit."
I can see this ending very well for the consumers.
I live in a giant bucket.
The reason I mention this is that the House passes lots of bills that never are passed by the Senate. Sometimes the Senate will pass their own version of a bill, and send it back to the House. This is why we have a bicameral legislature -- so that one legislative body can't pass laws by itself. It's a check within a division of the federal government, and serves a useful purpose.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Stopping spyware would be great, but if I were you ('you' as in 'citizen of the united states') I would read any proposed laws on how to stop these people very carfeully before jumping up and down of joy.
If the new laws wouldn't be outright hostile to your freedom to use the internet and your computer from the start, they might possibly be easily modified to become that in the future.
c++;
"The FTC is seeking more legal authority to go after spyware vendors, and Congress has passed a few bills to support them, but the Senate is ignoring them. [...]"
This bothers me because it's typical of most people not understanding basic facts about the legislature. Congress is comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Saying "Congress has passed a few bills" means both the House and Senate have passed them, not just the House.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I love the endless circles...:-) I can't wait to see the FTC taking on the German security apparatus. Oh, heck, the FTC could probably find lots of involvement by the FBI, homeland security, etc., etc. Should be quite a show, pass the popcorn.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/31/1955205&from=rss
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-security30oct30,0,3975040.story?track=mostviewed-storylevelproposal
I wonder who gets to decide what is spyware? who is going to write the definition? what other powers will they decide to give themselves why they are at it?
ask yourself, when was the last time the federal government did anything which was in your best interest, and not that of big business or other moneyed powers?
It seems to be a break-down in the fundamental egoism and show-boating that runs the Senate... almost as if they were all distracted by a massive policy black hole somewhere else that's absorbing all of their somewhat limited time. I don't know, maybe a war or something.
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Which is, of course, the whole point. Perhaps Zyxwvut believes that the PATRIOT act was a sound bit of legislation, and that the whole concept of "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't wash nowadays, but not all of us are so eager to rush headlong into the police state he so ardently desires.
I should only be able to give money to candidates I am permitted to vote for.
The problem, as I see it, is that most of the Senate is insulated from the reality of the problem:
Thus, for any given senator it's: "Problem? What problem?"
I am curious why the House of Representatives is able to see that there is a problem, but the Senate does not. Could it be that the Representatives are "closer" to the people; are better able to perceive our problems as individuals? IIRC, that was one of the intentions of our having a bicameral legislative branch. Whatever convinced the representatives might be leveraged to help persuade the Senate.
I'd love to see the outcome of a Senator voluntarily publishing their personal e-mail address for harvesting and getting their report on how they liked it.
Note: I am NOT advocating that a staffer anonymously publish any senators' private e-mail addresses -- they have a duty to the Congress to uphold.
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What a coincidence ;P
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/31/1955205
Microsoft can sell operating systems that allow spyware and my tax dollars will be used to go after the spyware vendors. What am I missing!
Now, who exactly counts as a spyware "vendor"? I don't see many COTS "spyware" packages (MS products exempted for the sake of argument). I see plenty of spyware masquerading as system utilities, marketing/profiling, weather widgets, screen savers, viruses, and worms attached to things, but none of these seem to come from vendors who advertise themselves as such.
This smells of the same logic as gun control - let's make them highly regulated so we know who has them... but the ones who you don't want to have them - the problems - are most often then ones who go around the regulation to get one. Same with spyware, those that make the really effective spyware aren't going to be registered as software vendors in a way that the FTC can regulate.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
I hear that guy in New York loves going after high-profile undesirables.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I've sort of been wondering about this myself. Like that pathetic "CAN-SPAM" or whatever it was called. Who's paying our fearless leaders off? Perhaps no one has offered the right amount to grease the skids on this. It is so atypical of our chosen ones to pass up an opportunity to at least pretend to do something. Such an obvious opportunity to make noise, er, news. I've always seen it as a liability issue myself. Any just court (I'm using my imagination, so just fantasize here,) would find a tort for all the time and effort of dealing with unwanted software and spam, and order restitution AND damages for the egregious conduct. What is wrong with me that I could be so mistaken here? Spam seems analogous to everyone getting a free load of horse manure on their porch every morning. Some of us might like it for our compost or such, but after a while it can be a bit much. There's probably some law against it, and reasonably so. Malware could be analogous to various things, say a dose of cholera in the well. That too is probably illegal. Is the FTC the only agency with jurisdiction? What is the hold-up?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.