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Spyware illegal in US
by Nikola Strahija on October 11th, 2004 The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that would make using spyware to snoop of the online activities of consumers a criminal offence.
Offenders who use spyware to commit other crimes such as stealing user's credit card details, or computer cracking, could be sentenced up to five years of jail.
The legislation authorises the US Department of Justice to spend $10m targeting organisations which sneak rogue programs on users' PCs without their consent. As well as spyware, the bill also targets people and organisation responsible for launching "phishing" attacks.
