Congress  Seeks 'Bite' For Privacy  Watchdog
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Key lawmakers want to replace a White House privacy and civil liberties board created by Congress in 2004 with one that is more independent of the president. The idea is to make the board more like the one envisioned by the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.
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Organizations and law enforcement agencies fighting spyware are making progress, but new tools in an antispyware bill stalled in the U.S. Congress could improve the efforts, a member of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday.One of the spyware bills passed by the House of Representatives earlier this year, the Spy Act, would give the FTC authority to impose civil fines on companies that distribute spyware to consumers&#39; computers. The bill, along with the Internet Spyware Prevention (or I-SPY) Act, have&#160;stalled in the Senate&#160;since passing the House in May and June.The FTC has the authority to collect profits from spyware operations and collect money for consumer redress, but it lacks the authority to impose other fines, as it does when going after spammers, said Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, speaking at a spyware forum in Washington, D.C.Assigning a dollar figure to consumer harm is tricky in many spyware cases, especially when the spyware delivers pop-up advertisements to computers, Leibowitz said. It&#39;s sometimes difficult to get courts to assign large consumer damages to pop-up cases, he said.In some cases, spyware damages are assessed by judges &quot;who don&#39;t even use computers,&quot; said Dave Koehler, with the FTC&#39;s Bureau of Consumer Protection.The Spy Act would allow the FTC to fine spyware vendors up to $3 million for hijacking computers, delivering unwanted adware, and other violations, and $1 million for collecting personal data without permission, in addition to going after the vendor&#39;s profits and seeking consumer redress.Additional authority to impose civil fines would give the FTC &quot;an enormous deterrent,&quot; Leibowitz said.&quot;Right now, companies know that the worst they can do is lose their profits,&quot; he added. &quot;They&#39;re not going to get fined on top of that.&quot;The FTC has brought several spyware actions against companies. In February, the agency settled&#160;a case against adware distributor DirectRevenue. In that case, DirectRevenue settled for $1.5 million, based on its profits, but the founders of the company had received more than $20 million in venture-capital funding, Leibowitz said.While participants in the spyware forum said there continue to be many challenges, including a growing trend of foreign spyware vendors, the cost of spyware to U.S. consumers seems to be falling. Consumer Reports estimated that spyware cost U.S. consumers $2.6 billion in 2006, but only $1.7 billion in 2007, noted Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a supporter of StopBadware.org, a consumer-protection effort aimed at spyware and other malicious code.The drop in the cost of spyware can be attributed to a number of factors, Schwartz said. Antispyware technology is getting better, the FTC has taken action against spyware vendors, and StopBadware.org has distributed a&#160;list of malicious Web sites, he said. In addition, some states have taken action against spyware, and cybersecurity groups&#39; public education programs seem to be working, he said.But Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA), noted that consumers may know more about spyware, but they aren&#39;t always acting on their knowledge. A survey released by the NCSA and McAfee earlier this month found 78 percent of respondents&#39; computers didn&#39;t have all three of what the NCSA calls the &quot;core protection&quot; software: anti-virus, antispyware, and firewall.&quot;We&#39;re not seeing a huge increase in the actual behavior change,&quot; he said.
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With the EU crafting new laws governing how data collectors such as Google protect users' personal data, lawmakers there are clashing with US business leaders over how far that protection can and should extend.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- An ethics group is urging Congress to scrutinize Google Inc.'s copyright controls after finding hundreds of apparently pirated movies available on the Internet search leader's Web site.
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Civil liberties advocates urged a White House privacy board Tuesday to review aggressively the government's warrantless surveillance program, even as they questioned whether it has the power to do so.
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Democratic commissioner says agency would be much more effective in halting deceptive spyware makers if Congress allowed it to levy hefty monetary penalties.
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This week's top-level spying spat hits on a legal gray area that may require new laws to resolve.
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European lawmakers plan to take the unusual step of pressing antitrust regulators next month to look at privacy concerns raised by Google Inc.'s intended takeover of online ad tracker DoubleClick.
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A congressional inquiry into online data brokers has raised concerns that federal and local law enforcement may be skirting privacy laws to obtain calling records
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Two bills designed to curb the proliferation of Internet "spyware" took another step toward law this week, but they are racing against the clock as Congress prepares to disperse for the November elections. -washingtonpost.com
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Congress drafts two bills to implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. Critics say neither has adequate privacy or civil liberties safeguards, but the House version includes a litany of assaults on individuals' rights. By Ryan Singel.
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The U.S. Congress should proceed cautiously while considering bills to authorize a U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program because of the potential impact on the technology industry, a tech trade group said Friday.
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Privacy to be central to lawmaker hearings in Europe on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of the online-ad company.
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The dusty shelves of your local library are going high-tech with tagging chips. Civil liberties groups warn of a privacy nightmare.
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Lawmakers may soon pass a bill that would set up a huge network of databases that law enforcement officials could tap to find terrorists. But that kind of unfettered access to data about Americans raises eyebrows. By Ryan Singel.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
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The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security wants answers from the Department of Homeland Security about data mining programs that were shut down for privacy reasons after millions of dollars were spent on them.