From Findlaw’s Tools of the Trade newsletter:
FTC Attempts to Stop Spyware Operation
In what regulators are calling a first, the government has asked for a court order to shut down a spyware operation. The Federal Trade Commission says computer users who went to certain Web sites unknowingly had the snooping software downloaded onto their computers. The agency says it secretly changed settings, caused computers’ CD-ROM trays to fly open and triggered barrages of pop-up ads for anti-spyware programs called Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter.