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House Committee Passes "Informed P2P User Act"
An anonymous reader writes "This week the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the 'Informed P2P User Act' and has sent it along to the full House for consideration. The bill, which appears to have heavy support on both sides of the political fence, simply states that P2P software must not install extra software or prevent users from removing it, in addition to being 'clear and conspicuous' about which files are being shared and getting user consent to share them. 'Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the powerful committee chairman, opened the markup session by warning about "the danger of inadvertent sharing of sensitive information through the use, or misuse, of certain file sharing programs. Tax returns, medical files, and even classified government documents have been found on these networks. The purpose of H.R. 1319 is to reduce inadvertent disclosures of sensitive information by making the users of this software more aware of the risks involved."'"
Yeh, that's the important point. Why not just ban spyware, period?
Spyware violates electronic privacy laws that already exist.
As long as you make it clear and consice that anything and everything can be shared, and that the user agrees to this, I see no problem with programs like these operating. What it's really designed to stop is P2P applications getting installed that don't tell the user they are sharing the whole C: drive by default. As long as you tell the user exactly what is happening, and they agree to it, there is no problem.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Even more interesting is the provision right up front in section 2.a.2 exempting preloaded software on new computers as long as somewhere in the 40 pages of tiny print the purchaser is told that a back-door sharing program is installed.
So preloaded sharing programs and spyware installed by Sony is ok then...
The bill is 7 pages, people. READ IT.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090930/hr1319_ains.pdf
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
This is of course, only possible if the writers of P2P software actually give two hoots about the bill.....
The author might not care. But the distributor will.
No downloads from CNET - and - quite possibly - no downloads through Sourceforge or your favorite Linux repository either.
The distributor is exposed and he is likely to have a legally and financially significant presence in the U.S.
He can be reached and he can be hurt.