Free Republic

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved its fast-track anti-spyware legislation today, pushing the bill out for a full House vote. But not before amending its language. Again. At a January hearing on the legislation, several lawmakers, who otherwise strongly supported H.R. 29, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act (SPY ACT), raised concerns that the bill would unintentionally target third-party cookies. During a subcommittee vote last month, the House amended the SPY ACT in an attempt to exempt all types of cookies. And before voting on the legislation on Wednesday, the committee further amended it to...

To: Congresswoman Mary Bono, Congressman Joe Barton, Congressman Cliff Stearns Subject: H.R.29, SPY ACT (Introduced in House) As a professional in the industry, I find section 5.B.1 to be insufficient. According to the current draft, exemption is provided as long as the provider is installing monitoring software for the detection of fraudulent activities. There is no definition for the phrase "fraudulent activities," nor for the "detection" of "fraudulent activities". As such, any software provider (even outside of US Law Enforcement) can install monitoring software to collect information under the premise that it was for detecting fraudulent activities, and they would...