WASHINGTON -- Senators George Allen (R-Virginia) and Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) introduced new anti-spyware legislation Wednesday that focuses on improving enforcement of existing laws rather than creating new ones
The new anti-spyware bill would significantly increase civil and criminal penalties for spyware distributors and creators, according to Allen. He says that illegal profits from spyware should be seized and given to improve law enforcement, as is currently the case under federal drug laws with regard to profits from illegal drug sales.
Allen announced his bill, which has not yet officially been named, at a meeting of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee. It follows the SPY BLOCK bill, which was introduced last year and then reintroduced in the Senate in March. SPY BLOCK aims to introduce new rules to protect consumers from the growing spyware problem. Allen says that his bill will give law enforcement more resources to go after spyware makers under existing laws and will add stiff new penalties.
Right now, Allen's bill competes with SPY BLOCK. Theoretically, only one of the two bills should make it to the Senate floor for a vote. But the two bills may be combined into a single compromise bill before either moves forward.
SPY BLOCK and Allen's new bill each would create a national standard that would supersede current state anti-spyware laws.
Expensive Threat
Whichever bill moves forward, senators and witnesses at Wednesday's hearing agreed that spyware is a vast and expensive threat to consumers and the economy, and that it needs to be addressed.
"Spyware is sort of like someone walking around your house invisibly," says Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California). "It harms consumers, damages computers, and undermines the privacy that people expect and deserve." Boxer is a cosponsor of SPY BLOCK.
Boxer says that spyware generates over $2 billion a year for its creators and distributors. She and many senators also referred to an AOL survey from last year that found spyware on 80 percent of the computers it examined.
Privacy and advertising industry groups backed the need for stronger enforcement. Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, says that lax pursuit of lawbreakers today casts doubt on tomorrow's laws.
"How do we go about enforcing these new laws that we're going to put on, if we can't enforce today's laws?" he asks.
J. Trevor Hughes, executive director of the Network Advertising Initiative, says that the online advertising industry has a deep self-interest in defeating spyware because it erodes public trust in e-commerce. Better prosecution would be effective in the fight against spyware makers due to the deterrent effect of seeing people "come out of courthouses with raincoats over their heads," he says.
In response to a question from Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) about information available to consumers, Schwartz said that he recommends reading mainstream computer magazines such as PC World to learn about spyware and how to fight it.
Burns has worked with Allen in the past to bring the stronger penalties and law enforcement provisions from the new bill into SPY BLOCK, and would still like to do so, according to Burns's spokesperson, Jennifer O'Shea.
Now that both bills have been introduced, the committee will decide when and whether to send either bill to the full Senate for a vote.
