‘Too soon to ban spyware’
p2pnet.net News:- The Federal Trade Commission’s Mozelle Thompson says it’s too early for the US to pass laws to ban spyware.
Instead, technology businesses should teach consumers how to avoid falling victim to identity theft scams and other dangers that spyware poses, he’s quoted as saying in a Washington Post story here.
Thompson, a former principal deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Treasury, was speaking at an FTC workshop, says the Post.
According to Thompson, federal regulators and the business community “still have a little bit of homework to do” before deciding on the best way to protect people from computer software that tracks their Web-surfing habits, it adds.
April 21st, 2004 at 11:35 am
why not? banning every other form of human behaviour on here *tongue firmly in cheek*
Maybe should define “spyware”. Online identity theft is one thing but spyware is - to my mind something completely different. I would say any program that alters my registry, changes my homepage without my consent or knowledge, adds “tools” without my consent, deletes or changes programs that are there to detect spyware ARE invasive. Something has to be done. I didn’t ask to have these programs installed on my computer. I wasnt given a EULA to read that notified me that these programs were being installed. I had NO choice in the matter.I am not warned if a program has malware included in its package and disables my security features.
I have no choice in how IE handles it’s cache of temporary internet files (a favourite way for these browser hijackers to use to get into my system) The end user isn’t the only problem, take a look to IE, the most used browser its a security accident waiting to happen. (i prefer mozillas firefox)
I think he’s out to lunch and needs to be more aware of the situation. I have spybot search and destroy, hijack this, CW Shredder, File checker, MRU blaster, Code stuff starter on my machine.
How much more aware do I need to be on this issue? how much more security do I need before he wakes up and realizes this is a prevalent problem that isn’t going to go away any time soon? That “they” are getting more savy with their techniques? How much more spyware savy do I need to be before he realizes this is a problem that isn’t going away?