Kudos to Congress: House Passes Anti-Spyware Bill

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation aimed at fighting the fraudulent use of the Internet through spyware and other harmful scams. Spearheaded by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the Internet Spyware Prevention Act (H.R. 1525), if signed into law, would impose criminal penalties for those who access a computer, without authorization and with the intent to commit fraud, and for those who transmit personal identification information over the internet with the intent to injure to commit fraud. The bill also authorizes $40 million for the Department of Justice to combat other computer-related scams.

The bill does not include controversial proposed language that would have required software distributors to notify and seek consent from software users. Those provisions were generally viewed unfavorably by the software developer community as overreaching policy that would have become stifling to innovation.

For more information, see this Security News article.

To learn more about the StopBadware.org project, their mission, and accomplishments, please visit their website.