Washington State AG Files First Lawsuit Under New Spyware Law

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

27 January 2006

Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna on Wednesday announced the filing of the first lawsuit under the state’s new computer spyware act.

The suit, filed earlier this week in US District Court in Seattle, accuses New York-based Secure Computer, as well as associates in the United States and India, of marketing software that falsely claims computers are infected with spyware and selling consumers a program that claims to remove it. In fact, the software renders computers more susceptible to attacks.

The lawsuit and a similar suit brought by Microsoft are the result of parallel investigations by experts at Microsoft and the Attorney General’s High-Tech Fraud Unit.

“Spyware has overtaken computer viruses as the number-one threat to personal computer users,” McKenna explained. “This lawsuit will make it clear to those who prey on consumers’ fears about spyware that we are no longer going to tolerate their heinous activities.”

The state’s suit alleges violations under Washington’s 2005 Computer Spyware Act, as well as the federal “CAN-SPAM” Act, the state Commercial Electronic Mail Act and the state Consumer Protection Act.

Washington’s new spyware act prohibits inducing a computer user to download software by making false claims that the software is necessary for security purposes. It further prohibits software from surreptitiously modifying a computer’s security settings. The statute carries a penalty of $100,000 per violation.

If found liable, defendants can also be fined up to $250 per violation under the federal CAN-SPAM act, $500 per violation under Washington’s spam act, $2,000 per violation under the Consumer Protection Act, as well as other restitution to be determined by the court.

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