Law Commons^™

Rethinking Spyware: Questioning The Propriety Of Contractual Consent To Online Surveillance, Wayne R. Barnes

Faculty Scholarship

The spyware epidemic has reached new heights on the Internet. Computer users are increasingly burdened with programs they did not knowingly or consciously install, which place strains on their computers' performance, and which also trigger annoying "pop-up" advertisements of products or services which have been determined to match the users' preferences. The users' purported preferences are determined, in turn, by the software continuously monitoring every move the consumer makes as she "surfs the Internet." The public overwhelmingly disapproves of spyware which is surreptitiously placed on computers in this manner, and also largely disapproves of the pop-up advertising paradigm. As a …