FTC Threatens Spyware Distributors With Prison 126
Federal regulator Mark Pryor, in a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, has stated that spyware distributors should face harsher penalties than fees. His solution: imprisonment. "Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic said most wrongdoers in the spyware arena 'can only be described as vicious organized criminals. Many of most serious wrongdoers we observed in this area, I believe, are only going to be deterred if their freedom is withdrawn,' so it's important for the FTC to collaborate on its cases with criminal law enforcement authorities, Kovacic said."
Re:Windows?? (Score:2, Interesting)
Fix Computers (Score:0, Interesting)
Making the punishment fit the crime (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember, not too long ago, when pricks around the world wrote dialers for people with dial-up connections. Dialers, once installed, would route someone's call to their ISP through some insanely far-away place (usually pimples in the pacific) with insanely high long-distance costs. The people who wrote the software would then split the profits made from the long-distance call with the corrupt operator of the far-away places' phone company. The effect was to leave people out-of-pocket by a huge amount (hundreds or thousands of dollars). If the target got the long-distance charge removed by the local phone company, the local phone company would have to eat the charges.
The point of the above is to underline the character of crimes committed: it's pure theft. Modern spyware either seals people's browsing habits or personal information, so it's a little less direct, but it's still a theft.
I think spyware writers are more foul than virus writers: while virus writers do what they do for the technical thrill and bother a lot of people in the process, spyware writers do it just to get money.
Their motives are base, their methods are underhanded, and they should go to jail.
Re:Interesting challenge. (Score:5, Interesting)
FWIW, this seems like a good idea, too. I'm not a fan of prison terms in general, but I also think that they're quite good at deterring white-collar crime (fraud etc., as opposed to blue-collar crime where you actually have to get your hands dirty - armed robbery, battery, and so on). The problem with penalty fees is that they're paid by the company, not the individuals who're actually responsible - so even if worst comes to worst and if the company will go bankrupt, they'll just go and start another one.
It's like punishing mafia hitmen but letting the actual dons go free - they'll just hire new hitmen and continue like before. But as soon as the directors of a spyware company are *personally* threatened with punishment for their deeds (and let's face it, it *is* upper management that is responsible for these things: the company does not have a life of its own that goes beyond the people working in/for it, and doesn't just decide to commit crimes on its own), most likely will stop and comply with the letter of the law, at least.
It's a good idea, but... (Score:2, Interesting)