A revised bill aiming to stop spyware makers or distributors from hijacking Web pages or tracking keystrokes—and allow the Federal Trade Commission to fine violators as much as $3 million per violation—has passed the House Commerce Committee.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono (R-California), would also require spyware/adware programs to be identified easily and removable easily, and that no personal information be collected without the explicit consent of the end user.
House Commerce Committee chairman Joseph Barton (R-Texas) compared spyware purveying to burglary. "To my mind, invading a personal computer is no different than breaking and entering a person's home," he said during the March 9 session. "Those who do it are crooks, if not strictly burglars.... I want the FTC to go after them with a vengeance."
The bill was augmented in February when Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-Florida) added an amendment exempting tracking cookies from spyware definitions the bill covers. It also exempts embedded ads on Web pages from a requirement that online ads—usually popups—include identifying information so consumers can find and rid themselves of any spyware that prods those ads.
Stearns also added a new amendment March 9, one that would exempt so-called Web “beacons”—HTML and Java facilitating ordinary Web page construction but don’t monitor consumer behavior or mine information about them—from being classified as spyware.
The bill’s revised language also allows companies to continue monitoring their own Websites’ activity, and advertise their own products directly based on that monitoring, and not be subject to the bill’s requirement of notice and consent.
Stearns also added a provision to penalize attacks in which hackers create malicious Wi-Fi hotspots to lure users whose data is intercepted or who get sent to spoof sites aimed at personal information mining when they log in.
But some think the bill will get even more tinkering before the full House gets a vote on it. The ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, John Dingell (D-Michigan), is said to believe the cookie exemption is too broad, and that the House should consider that they’re not making “dangerous loopholes that are inconsistent with the purposes of this legislation.”
A similar bill in the Senate stalled last year, and its author, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana), is expected to bring back a new version of that bill within the next few months.
