House of Representatives Bans Spyware

Two bills pass the House with overwhelming majorities, and will severely penalize spyware makers. The applications download silently, completely unobvious to the typical Internet user. By visiting certain malicious web sites, disguised as something benign, the user triggers the download. In some cases, the computer starts displaying ads for products almost non-stop. In others, the user's visits to sites get tracked and reported to the spyware companies. Either scenario represents a rich payoff to the provider while users get stuck with sluggish and non-functioning computers crippled by the extra load. In more criminal uses, spyware logs the keystrokes a user makes, capturing information like usernames and passwords to financial sites, and passes that along to a collecting site. A $2 billion USD market for these stealth services continues to propel their efforts. It's too much money for some to ignore, and they all too easily toss aside any ethical considerations in favor of the payoff. And this isn't a problem limited to a few dozen or hundred machines. In a previous article, Murdok here