[Linda]

The House on Thursday passed the second bill in three days that would outlaw "spyware," irritating software that quietly monitors the activities of Internet users.

It would add penalties of up to five years in prison for people convicted of installing such programs without a computer user's permission.


Full article -
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/10/07/internet.spyware.ap/index.html

[Cheesehead]

This again gets into the argument of whether "permission" was granted or not. These SCUMballs nearly always imbed notice of the software 10 pages into the exhaustive EULA so they claim the user gives permission.