Spyware Bills to Three-Peat before Congress

For the third time in as many years, a U.S. House committee has reported out a bill that would criminalize the spreading of spyware on users’ computers.

The Internet Spyware Prevention Act (H.R. 1525), also known as the “I-Spy Act”, was approved yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee, as it had been when introduced to the last two Congresses. In both those instances, the bill passed in the House but languished and died in the Senate.

Introduced once again this year by Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the measure would make it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to download unauthorized code that could capture users’ personal data or impair the working of their computers’ security protections.

It will also be the third time the I-Spy bill goes up against another proposed law, H.R. 964, also known as the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass (SPY ACT) Act. That measure was approved early last month by the House Subcommittee for Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The bills differ in the approach they take to banning adware tactics such as browser cookies. The SPY ACT measure would require positive opt-in, notice and consent before “taking control” of a user’s computer and would prohibit collecting personally identifiable information through keystroke loggers or modifying settings such as the browser home page. The bill would allow civil penalties of as much as $3 million per infraction.

Like H.R. 1525, the SPY ACT has been passed twice before in the House but failed to make it through the Senate, in part due to opposition from the advertising industry. Marketing companies have objected that even though H.R. 964 has been amended to exempt browser cookies, the strict regulations on collecting data about users’ behavior could still work to prevent targeting ads or content on the Web.

By contrast, Goodlatte said, the I-Spy Act would punish criminals without overregulating industry or stifling innovation.