Dealing With Adware And Spyware

from the their-oughta-be-a-law dept

News.com is apparently running a three day focus on spyware and adware and what needs to be done about them. Today's article says that we need laws to protect us from these programs. The writers argue that technological and business solutions are unlikely to work, or do a good enough job protecting users' rights. While I do hate adware/spyware schemes, I'm a bit hesitant to put that power into the government's hands. They do (DMCA) have a history (CDBTPA) of creating laws to solve problems that only make the problems worse. These laws usually are not particularly well thought out, and have unintended consequences that hurt a lot more than they help.

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  1.  

    Its not so much that...

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    The Captain, Jun 25th, 2002 @ 8:15am

    These laws usually are not particularly well thought out, and have unintended consequences, its more that the people that the government is "watching out for" ISN'T *us*...its big business. Period. A lot of these consequences I'm CERTAIN were intended.

    If the fed was in charge of regulating adware...we'd see much less adware from small obscure companies...but we'd see a LOT more, 100% LEGAL, quite insidious spyware from the big names I'm sure.

    reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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