01:00 AM EDT on Friday, June 24, 2005
BERKELEY, Calif.
PERHAPS the following scenario sounds familiar. After downloading a new program, you start to see pop-up ads everywhere. The ads are relentless, promoting all manner of useless and even insulting products.
Try as you might, you can't stop them from invading, and hijacking your ability to use your computer in peace and quiet. Perhaps you also notice that your browser home page has been changed, with your browser favorites replaced by links you never would have selected in a million years.
And, perhaps most insulting of all, you get an ad that asks whether you are tired of the pop-ups. It promises to free your computer from their maddening grip for just $50.
If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. If it doesn't, it probably will soon. A 2004 survey by America Online and the National Cybersecurity Alliance found that 80 percent of people surveyed had some kind of spyware or adware program on their computer. (Generally, spyware refers to programs that monitor your computing activities, potentially stealing sensitive information; adware refers to programs that merely launch pop-up ads.)
Both of these programs are disruptive and sometimes destructive. They slow our computers, create frustration, and, if left unchecked, could render the Web virtually uninhabitable.
In short, somebody ought to do something about this. That somebody is, of course, Congress.
Actually, the House recently passed two bills dealing with the problem. One, the I-SPY Act, would toughen criminal penalties for spyware activities, although it ignores adware. The other bill, the SPY Act, would also toughen penalties for spyware, but would essentially make adware legal, by carving out protections for opt-in programs. A related bill is moving through committee in the Senate, and if approved, a compromise bill could become law this year.
Yet it's far from clear that what Congress is proposing would do the trick. The problem with the opt-in approach is that almost none of the adware programs are up-front about what they're doing. They bury the user's consent deep in the lengthy legalese of the terms of agreement, which Internet users "approve" when they download unrelated programs. According to the recent National Spyware Survey, sponsored by Unisys, 61 percent of respondents didn't remember consenting to adware.
One solution would be to require adware companies to be straight with potential downloaders: "If you download this program, you will be bombarded with pop-up ads."
The difficulty in dealing with adware is, of course, the advertisers, who aren't afraid to fight for the right to pester you till you throw your computer out the window.
At a recent Senate hearing on spyware, the executive director of the Network Advertising Imitative, J. Trevor Hughes, put it diplomatically: "Our responses to spyware must carefully balance our need to aggressively meet the threat, while protecting the continued legitimate use of a channel that is beginning to show its true promise. We must also be wary of spyware legislation that inappropriately includes online privacy standards."
The more thuggish approach comes courtesy of the Web-advertising firm WhenU, which last year sued after Utah enacted the country's toughest anti-spyware law. WhenU -- whose software tracks the Web sites a person visits and then sends the person targeted ads -- successfully asserted that the Utah law was unconstitutional, on the grounds that it interfered with interstate commerce and restricted freedom of (commercial) speech.
Utah has since enacted a toned-down anti-spyware law, but is still bracing itself for legal challenges.
Unfortunately, the legislative strategies that are emerging show that lawmakers aren't willing to do battle with advertisers. This was exactly the mistake that Congress made two years ago with its CAN-SPAM Act, which was supposed to deal with the problem of spam: unsolicited e-mail. The law served only to make deceptive e-mail illegal -- clearing the way for hopeless amounts of all other e-mail.
Spam thus continues unabated. Experts estimate that some 75 percent of all e-mail is spam -- about 15 billion messages a day -- costing businesses tens of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity.
Legislators now have a chance to do better in dealing with the latest threats. If Congress is serious about letting the Internet develop as it should, its members should take a tough line on both spyware and adware, and be far more willing to stand up to greedy advertisers.
If Congress doesn't do this, the Internet could become a lot less habitable a place in the near future.
Lee Drutman, a frequent contributor, is the author of The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy (Berrett-Koehler).
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20050624_24lee.1a47dc3.html
No comments:
Post a Comment