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."

Comments

YES!

[ILuvRamen]

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)

Re:YES!

[SirLurksAlot]

That's one way to look at it, but OTOH at what point do you say enough is enough? It's all well and good that we educate people on malware, but there has to be a point that the root problem gets addressed. My only real issue with legislation like this is that it doesn't mean squat to the rest of the world, and considering how many spy/malware creators exist outside of the US I can see this kind of initiative falling on it's head.

And we trust the FTC since?

[ealar dlanvuli]

"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.

WARNING: Pedantry in effect

[Red Flayer]

Congress has passed a few bills to support them, but the Senate is ignoring them

Congress contains the Senate. The House of Representatives has passed a few bills, not Congress as a whole. If Congress had passed a few bills, all that would be left would be Presidential approval.

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.

Re:WARNING: Pedantry in effect

[Red Flayer]

you may recall that they split of congress was a compromise between the big/little states that could not agree if the # of reps per state should be based on population or be a set number.

While the debate between how the # of reps did affect the system we ended up with, the concept of a bicameral legislature was older than that debate. England had a bicameral system in the 17th century, for example.

It was originally intended to only have one group in the legislature.

I think you might want to reread your history. There was never a unified 'intent' to have a unicameral legislature. The majority of framers understood the need for a bicameral institution, but were faced with the problem that they did not want an aristocratic house (like the British House of Lords). One fix would have been a single house, as with the NJ plan. Another fix, the one ultimately accepted, was to find another way of assigning the different houses.

Re:WARNING: Pedantry in effect

[absoluteflatness]

Of all the amendments to attack, you chose the 17th?

I mean, I've heard the reasoning against direct election before, but it's much closer to the 3rd Amendment than the 2nd on the scale of political and popular uproar.

Re:WARNING: Pedantry in effect

[absoluteflatness]

It's probably an artifact of the common labeling of House members as "Congressmen" and Senate members as senators. It makes it seem as if the two groups are exclusive, when really members of both houses could be accurately called "Congressmen(/women/persons/critters)".

Perhaps "Representatives" and "Senators" would be better, but then again, both groups are "representatives", too.

Bottom line, the House needs to get itself a more distinctive name. Too bad for them Senate is already taken.

Re:WARNING: Pedantry in effect

[Red Flayer]

Bottom line, the House needs to get itself a more distinctive name. Too bad for them Senate is already taken.

My vote is for the Skelate.

Then we could address them as Skeletor Jones, Skeletor Menendez, etc.

What's next?

[pipatron]

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.

this could be worrisome...

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

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?

Re:this could be worrisome...

[BCW2]

"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?"

The "do not call" list is the only thing congress has done in the last 40 years that has helped me, or worked as advertised. Sad but true.

Re:this could be worrisome...

[Red Flayer]

The "do not call" list is the only thing congress has done in the last 40 years that has helped me

The federal highway system (what, you thought all those goods you buy cheaply are trucked in off-road vehicles?)
FDIC-insured bank accounts (or do you keep all your money as cash^H^H^H^Hgold coins under your mattress?)
Environmental regulations (do you breathe air and drink water, or eat foods that need air and water to survive?)

It's easy to take potshots at the federal government, since there is so much that DOES get bungled. But take a look around you at the things you do every day, and think about how the Federal Government has contributed to them. It might surprise you how much our daily life is affected in secondary and tertiary ways.

Re:this could be worrisome...

[nametaken]

Something tells me the first thing they'll put on the list is wireshark, airsnort or some similar utility. Politicians + tech = BAD NEWS. Always.

Nothing But Good Press

[VengefulCynic]

While this issue has the potential to be a lot more nuanced than the article is letting on, what I really find curious is how no Senator has latched on to the idea of regulating spyware as a good thing. This issue, to my mind, is a lot like passing legislation that ruins the lives of sex offenders. Sure, you can pass laws that go way too far, but in the mind of the voting and news-watching public, if you're going after the Bad Guys, that's Always a Good Thing. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm really shocked that there aren't a couple of Senators (especially among those up for re-election) who haven't decided that it would be a Good Idea to get their names attached the the Law That Stops Bad Guys and run it through the Senate.

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.

Which spyware vendors contributed to senators?

[schwit1]

The House and Senate will not truly represent the voter until campaign contributions are limited to registered voters.

I should only be able to give money to candidates I am permitted to vote for.

Definition of vendor, please

[hanshotfirst]

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.

Re:Help the Senate to feel our pain?

[Red Flayer]

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.

Heh. Let's use Senators' private email accounts as spam honeypots (spampots?).

Let's see how many end up spending some money on herbal V1agra -- if Bob Dole uses it, surely there's no shame in it?