There have been periodic attempts to enshrine anti-spyware laws in the Federal Register, the most recent being the Internet Spyware Prevention Act of 2007, which was introduced and passed the House of Representatives, but was never called to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

In recent years, some states have filed lawsuits against firms suspected of creating and disseminating spyware. For example, in 2005, former New York State Attorney General Spitzer filed suit against a company called Intermix Media, despite the fact that no specific anti-spyware legislation is on the books. New York accused Intermix of violating the state’s laws against deceptive acts and practices, as well as false advertising. When users downloaded and installed screen savers from Intermix’s web sites, an adware program called KeenValue was surreptitiously installed at the same time. The firm “neglected” to include any sort of uninstall program and wrote the code to ensure the program reinstalled itself if it was ever deleted. Intermix also advertised its product as being free from spyware.

The big problem with prosecuting the purveyors of spyware is that the legal definition of what constitutes spyware are incredibly hazy. That, and as noted earlier, many users agree to allow the spyware to be installed on their computer when they click on the “I agree” button, acknowledging that they read and understood the terms of agreement. The best hope of consumers is for legislation to be enacted which limits what concessions software sellers can demand from users in their purposely obtuse and unintelligible end-user agreements. But the internet respects no national borders, and developing international laws governing such practices could prove quite elusive.