The second half of August may be quiet in Washington, but the global spyware fight never sleeps, it seems.

Earlier this week, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna filed the second-ever case under his state’s Computer Spyware Act, which was enacted in 2005. The case concerns four California companies that allegedly install difficult-to-remove software on victims’ computers that generates barrages of payment demands for a movie download service. From the complaint, it sounds like a riff on some of the same slimy practices we’ve observed for years from spyware distributors. The FTC also filed a complaint against the companies sued by the Washington AG.

We were extremely pleased to hear about the lawsuits. We’ve been saying for years that enforcement is a vital prong in the war against spyware and nuisance adware. Cases like these undercut some of the financial incentive for spyware by sending a clear message to miscreants that they can and will be held accountable for fraudulent and deceptive practices.

Also this week we published out latest Policy Post, which details some of the latest developments in the fight against spyware and adware.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Consumer Privacy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.