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."

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.

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.

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: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.