Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist reports that a coalition of Canadian industry groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, are demanding legalized spyware for private enforcement purposes. The potential scope of coverage is breathtaking: a software program secretly installed by an entertainment software company designed to detect or investigate alleged copyright infringement would be covered by this exception. This exception could potentially cover programs designed to block access to certain websites (preventing the contravention of a law as would have been the case with SOPA), attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, or even keylogger programs tracking unsuspecting users (detection and investigation)."

Re:Only over my dead body

[lgw]

The Department of Justice certainly remembers the Sony Rootkit. Remember, this rootkit found its way ont a great many government computers, which had to be cleaned by government IT staff, and was recent enough that there was already laws about that. Sony was fined enough for investors to notice, and punish the leadership, but the DoJ also said: do this again and Sony will no longer be a going concern in the US.

Any new spyware/rootkit product, even if intended only for the Canadian market, could also easily make its way onto US federal government computers, and the DoJ made it clear at the time that it wasn't just Sony they were warning - any company pulling this stunt again would cease to exist within the US. Apparantly the govenment's love for corporation does not reach quite so far as overlooking putting spyware on government networks (especially the DoJs own network) - so we've got that going for us.