Legal Issues

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick




FTC, Congress Fight Over Spyware

from the such-anger dept

As was expected, the FTC came out today against anti-spyware bills that have been introduced in Congress leading the bill's supporters to angrily attack the FTC officials: "You like this stuff? You're the only person in this country that wants spyware on their computer." The FTC's argument, of course, is not that they like spyware, but the fear that any definition of spyware is going to include plenty of legitimate programs as well. The problem is that no one has yet come up with a piece of legitimate software that falls under the definition discussed in various pieces of legislation. It always pays to be a bit wary of legislation like this, so I don't fault the FTC, but the reasons presented so far don't make much sense.

1 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Apr 30th, 2004 @ 9:00am

    No Subject Given

    by Anonymous Coward

    "The FTC's argument, of course, is not that they like spyware, but the fear that any definition of spyware is going to include plenty of legitimate programs as well"

    Yeah legitimate programs like those from mass-marketing companies who have funded some politician's re-election campaign or other.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie

Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It