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From Salon.com
A law to protect spyware
Sen. Fritz Hollings is pushing a bill that supposedly safeguards online privacy -- but actually gives intrusive marketers a green light.
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By Chris Wenham
April 26, 2002 | Outrage surged through users of the KaZaA file-sharing utility when they learned, early in April, that a new breed of spyware had been installed on their computers. KaZaA, probably the most popular heir to Napster's throne, was already well known for coming bundled with a wide variety of parasite programs that serve up advertisements, track Web-surfing activity, and otherwise cause mischief. But the newest arrival topped anything seen before in scope or ambition.
A company called Brilliant Digital had surreptitiously installed software in computers running KaZaA. Once activated, the software would set up a distributed computing network, allowing Brilliant to hijack the resources of thousands of personal computers to serve the needs of its own customers. Brilliant's plan is to use the computer processing power generated by the network to serve technologically advanced advertisements and track how users react to those ads.
As the newest assault on Internet privacy, Brilliant's plan pressed hard on an online hot button. Indeed, the tracking of personal data riles enough people that a new bill that purports to protect online privacy was introduced in Congress just last week. As the bill -- sponsored by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., and titled the Online Personal Privacy Act (S. 2201) -- notes, consumers fear there's too little privacy online and too much sharing of sensitive personal information among the business elite. Up to a third of them have been submitting bogus data about themselves in an attempt to protect their privacy, and "tens of billions of dollars in e-commerce" have been lost due to privacy fears, the bill warns.
But Hollings' bill should outrage Internet users just as much as Brilliant Digital's spyware. For while it talks a good game about protecting "sensitive" information, the truth is that it would place a congressional stamp of approval on precisely the kinds of practices that purveyors of spyware are eager to engage in.
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The fact that Hollings is behind this bill should be the first clue about the real agenda it serves. Hollings is also a sponsor of the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA, formerly known as the SSSCA), a bill that requires all new computers and other digital information devices to come with copy protection software and/or hardware installed on them. It would also outlaw any effort to reverse-engineer or disable any copy-protection format -- a measure that some observers believe will cripple software development -- particularly in the open-source and free-software communities. CBDTPA is ostensibly based on the premise that consumers won't sign up for broadband ISP access until Hollywood puts its content online, and Hollywood won't do that until its sure its intellectual property will be safe. But the bill isn't really about the "promotion" of broadband at all. Hollings is one of the Senate's largest recipients of entertainment industry campaign contributions, and the bill is squarely aimed at protecting that industry's interests.
Likewise with the Online Personal Privacy Act. It is masquerading as pro-consumer when in fact it is pro-business. The new legislation is similar to laws passed in Europe that divide your personal information into two types. The first is "sensitive" information, such as your financial and medical history, race, lifestyle, religion, political affiliation, and sex life. The second is "nonsensitive" information, and among that will include your name, address, and records of anything you buy or surf on the Internet. Under the act, business can't collect or divulge the sensitive bits without your express consent, but anything classified as nonsensitive can be freely collected and sold at will.
But the nonsensitive clause is a huge gaping loophole through which business will ride roughshod. Never mind that part about "sensitive" information being forbidden. Most things that businesses want to know about us can be inferred just by examining the things we buy, read and click on. If they can put that information together with our names, which the bill allows, then any concept of "privacy" protection is rendered meaningless. The Online Personal Privacy Act legitimizes the kind of intrusive spyware program activity that is currently proliferating.
