As expected, Washington State has now put in place some anti-spyware legislation that includes an impressive $100,000 fine per violation. Of course, the worry with any spyware legislation is about how spyware is defined. As we noted when discussing this bill last month, while the definition tries to avoid many of the pitfalls of other spyware definitions, it isn't perfect. The problem is that there are situations where certain elements that are "banned" by this law could be reasonable. Even more to the point is the question as to how enforceable this law will be. Either way, it will be worth watching to see what sort of lawsuits come out of this, and whether it really has an impact. Of course, there's also a chance that (most likely weak and misguided) federal anti-spyware legislation will pre-empt any state legislation.