Two anti-spyware bills are being readied in time for a hearing Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The measures, one sponsored by a California Republican and the other by a Washington Democrat, take different approaches toward software that lurks on a computer and serves pop-up ads or transmits personal information. But both make the same point: Official Washington is becoming officially fed up with the proliferation of spyware and adware. The new attention paid to malicious software follows last fall's unprecedented focus on unsolicited commercial e-mail.
"It may be this year's spam, if you will," Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., said in an interview. "We're recognizing that we have privacy rights at stake that could be abused and you have this increasing infestation of pop-up ads. That's a great impediment to people's use of this technology." Computer makers and security firms say that spyware and adware problems have increased nearly tenfold in the last year.
Inslee's bill punishes malicious spyware authors with criminal penalties, grants state attorneys general the power to bring civil cases, and regulates the use of spyware technology by federal police like the FBI. In 2001, news leaked out that the FBI was reportedly developing spyware technologies to remotely install surveillance programs on suspects' computers.
Read full story at CNET News.com
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