Politech: FTC convenes "spyware" workshop... with scant results

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2100-1028-5195222.html

Few solutions pop up at FTC adware workshop
Last modified: April 19, 2004, 7:04 PM PDT
By Declan McCullagh

WASHINGTON--Spyware, adware and other code that lurks on hard drives has 
become so pervasive it's bedeviling home users, driving corporate 
technology managers to distraction and has become the top complaint in 
customer service calls to computer makers.
But participants in a one-day workshop convened Monday by the Federal 
Trade Commission couldn't decide what to do about it.
Software companies warned of poorly written laws targeting spyware that 
could inadvertently affect legitimate products like smut-filtering 
software or security update mechanisms. Microsoft suggested that 
technology in a forthcoming Windows XP Service Pack might do the trick, 
while other participants touted third-party rating systems and voluntary 
codes of conduct.
Politicians and their aides defended laws targeting spyware, citing the 
example of last year's federal law regulating spam. But some advertising 
companies claim their business model is perfectly legitimate, and law 
enforcement representatives acknowledged they already had sufficient 
legal authority under computer crime laws to put the most noxious 
spyware makers in prison.
When asked whether new laws were needed to place spyware authors in 
prison, Mark Eckenwiler, a senior computer crime prosecutor at the U.S. 
Justice Department, replied: "By and large, the answer is no. In our 
quiver, we have a number of arrows we can use in prosecutions."
While spyware and adware started to become a public concern about a year 
ago, only in the past few months have some variants become the Internet 
equivalent of Public Enemy No. 1.
[...remainder snipped...]
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