STEARNS STRENGTHENED THE BILL DURINGS ITS CONSIDERATION IN HIS SUBCOMMITTEE

Washington, May 23, 2005 - "Through the hearings I held in my subcommittee on spyware and this legislation we heard how consumers today are facing an ever-increasing onslaught of malicious Internet-based technology designed to defraud not only them, but also to corrupt the Internet as a safe and secure space for commerce," stated Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL).  "Spyware is a program that is secretly loaded onto a victim's computer capable of the following activities:  Keystroke Logging, in which all of a computer user's keystrokes are recorded and sent to a third party; Homepage Hijacking, in which spyware takes control of a computer and hijacks the user's homepage to a commercial or pornographic site; and Phishing, in which spyware directs to a computer user false messages purporting to be from reputable merchants to steal credit card and other financial information from a user."

The House today approved H.R. 29, the Spy Act, which stops these deceptive and prohibited practices by establishing a uniform federal law regulating spyware and includes enhanced penalties.  It also establishes a clear opt-in for consumers wishing to download monitoring software, and requires that it be easily disabled.  H.R. 29 includes the language added by Stearns that clarifies that the bill does not apply to 'cookies' (text files placed on a consumer's hard drive by the visited web site), including 'third party cookies' (cookies readable by more than one affiliated entity); ensures that computer hijacking is prohibited; and makes clear that embedded ads are not subject to labeling for identification.