According to DMNews, Orson Swindle is stepping down from his position as a commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. A Republican appointee, Swindle has been a leading force in anti-spam, anti-malware, Internet privacy, and other cutting-edge Internet consumer issues.

While some may not have always agreed with Commissioner Swindle when he occasionally balked at stronger consumer protection measures, there is no doubt that during his tenure at the FTC, his gentle yet firm — and occasionally forceful — guidance more often than not helped common sense and reason get a fair airing at the agency. His “kindly grandfather” appearance always belied his quiet power, his raucous sense of humor, and the astonishing heroism that has marked his life.

I count myself lucky to have been there the day he broke up a potential fist-fight at an anti-spam workshop, an incident that will go down in the annals of Washington lore. But it was just another day in the remarkable life of this outstanding public servant. I know I join many in wishing him the best in whatever life has in store for him next.

Here are a few recent articles in which I’ve been quoted, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

When a lawyer gets hit by spammers, expect a lawsuit
CNET News.com - May 27, 2005
… Ziegler is one of the few individuals to sue an alleged spammer, said Ray Everett-Church, co-founder of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail and …

Lawmakers Must Forge Right Spyware Weapon
eSecurityPlanet.com - May 25, 2005
… we’ll see some bill come out of the meat grinder here that will have pieces and parts of all of these bills,” says Ray Everett-Church, a principal with PrivacyClue LLC, a privacy and anti-spam consultancy …

Turning the Tide of Spam
BusinessWeek - May 23, 2005
… “This is a stark reminder to spammers of the kind of punishment that can await them,” says Ray Everett-Church, chief counsel at the Coalition Against …

Cell phones can deliver pizza coupons
Cincinnati Enquirer, OH - May 20, 2005
… “If this type of thing proves successful, there will be other guys who don’t follow the rules,” says Ray Everett-Church, a principal partner at San Jose, Calif …

The War On Spam Takes A Novel Turn
Information Week - May 17, 2005
… Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for ePrivacy Group and counsel for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail, observes that the Internet …

On Monday, the U. S. House of Representatives passed two separate pieces of “spyware” legislation, only one of which actually promises to do anything to help consumers terrorized by unwanted spyware and adware.

[Author’s Note: From this point forward, I’m going to try and use the term “malware” to collectively describe the follies, felonies, and frauds, that constitute much of the behavior of the spyware and adware industries. If you want to know more about why I’m using the term malware, please read my explanation.]

As reported by CNet News.com’s ace DC bureau chief Declan McCullagh (who is apparently moving out here to SF soon; congrats Declan! and yay for us who enjoy his company!), the two bills take a very different tack, and together amount to exactly 200% more spyware legislation than the U.S. Senate managed to approve last year!

The first bill, H.R. 29, sponsored by Rep. Mary Bono (R-Ca.), identifies many of the most annoying and damaging features of “spyware,” “adware,” and anything else that falls into the semantic morass in between. It also focuses on issues of end-user notice and consent, two areas where most adware and spyware have chronic deficiencies. This bill would also empower the Federal Trade Commission to continue looking into malware issues, and require them to create regulations to guide future enforcement.

The second bill, H.R. 744, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Ca.), is a far narrower bill, focused primarily on only that software used to steal personal information for the purpose of committing fraud or to intentionally crash someones computer. As such, the bill would offer virtually no protection for those consumers who are besieged by software, whose intention may not be, but whose actual consequences are crashed computers and frustrated end-users.

I’m still digesting the final version of the Bono bill and trying to determine what actual effect it might have on protecting end-users from the excesses of the adware and spyware industries. But my initial reading of the Goodlatte-Lofgren bill is that to the extent it prohibits unauthorized access to private data, it offers consumers nothing in the way of new protections over existing law. However, the language does a masterful job of completely avoiding any impact on some of the worst players in the malware business… many of whom I’ve written about extensively in this blog.

Why does the Goodlatte-Lofgren bill completely miss the boat?

First, the bill focuses on anyone who, “intentionally obtains… personal information with the intent to defraud or injure… or cause damage to a protected computer…” Of course, the makers of most spyware and adware don’t “intentionally” crash people’s computers, even though their software routinely does it. Indeed, according to Microsoft’s anti-malware team leader, Jason Garms:

“The primary problem that users have with spyware is that their systems crash or are really slow or don’t behave in the way they expect them to,” Garms said. “We try to figure out how many of the crashes that are reported to us are actually attributable to spyware, and it turns out that at least one-third of those machines had spyware installed on them, so it is a big problem.”

Second, the Goodlatte-Lofgren bill focuses on “intentional” gathering of personal information for purposes of committing fraud (which is already illegal). Most malware companies are proud that they only gather “aggregated” or “anonymous” data while their software is monitoring your Internet activities. They don’t need your Social Security number to cause an annoying pop-up ad; they don’t need your mother’s maiden name to hijack your default search engine. Thus, by limiting the reach of penalties to only those bad guys who are already committing fraud, they have created a loophole through which you can drive the entire malware industry.

So, pound for pound, I think the Bono bill is looking like a better piece of legislation. It doesn’t buy into the adware companies’ word-games and instead focuses on the actual harm visited upon consumers. The Bono bill reads like a laundry list of the annoying, frustrating, and intentionally harmful things that I have personally witnessed while trying to exorcise the demon-spawn of companies like Claria, WhenU, CoolSavings, QooLogic, 180 Solutions, and others, from the computers of my friends and family.

Meanwhile, the semantic battle over “adware” vs. “spyware” has Microsoft seeking protection from the frivolous, harassing lawsuits that have become the stock-in-trade of many of the most notorious malware companies. It seems that whenever malware companies perceive a threat, they try to kill the messenger. CNet pointed out a few of those incidents, such as Claria’s lawsuit against PC Pitstop, New.net’s suit against the maker of Ad-Aware, and threats against the tireless anti-spyware advocate Ben Edelman.

In today’s DMNews, everbody’s favorite television background noise, the Weather Channel (weather.com), announced that it was partnering with adware company CoolSavings to infest the Desktop Weather 4.0 application with offers to “opt in for samples, trial offers, travel brochures and free newsletters from CoolSavings.”

It’s not clear from the marketing-speak what, exactly, the Desktop Weather application will have in it. For example, it may simply be offering links to opt-in emails. But given the history of CoolSavings as purveyors of unwanted adware, I’m not hopeful.

The real news, however, is that many more companies, including some names you should know, are getting into bed with adware companies like CoolSavings. According to DMNews:

The company signed similar arrangements with RealNetworks, for people who download RealPlayer, and with Netscape, for those who download its Netscape Browser, as part of seven distribution agreements it will announce this year.

As I’ve noted previously, the real and growing scandal in the adware and spyware world is not that these companies are becoming more brazen in their activities. The scandal is the disconcerting number of otherwise upstanding, mainstream companies who are getting in bed with some of the most notorious names in the field.

So what’s one to do if you want your local weather information displayed on your computer desktop, but doesn’t want to risk unwanted adware or spyware? Do what I do: use the Weather Widget, which is included in the free download of Konfabulator.

Konfabulator is a free desktop utility that allows you to plug in a wide variety of “widgets” (yes, that’s what they call ‘em) that are created and distributed freely by dozens of dedicated developers the world over. downloads, as easy to install as moving the “.widget” file to your “My Widgets” directory, and let you put lots of useful things right on your desktop. And the “widget” philosophy is one of simple function, simple configuration, and clean and beautiful design.

They have just launched a new version called Konfabulator:2, which is a pay version. But as far as I know you can still use the regular old free version. (Please correct me if I’m wrong…)

I think I’m going to pay for the upgraded version because, a) it’s always the right thing to do to pay for software that you actually use, and b) you have to reward people for making cool stuff… otherwise they might go find other work doing things that you can’t afford! Meanwhile, from what I can tell, the Konfabulator Weather Widget appears to draw its weather data from the same data feeds at Weather.com, and does so without risking installing strange and unwanted adware on your machine.

So give it a try!

Suddenly, stuffing your nestegg under your mattress isn’t looking like such a crazy idea. Today’s debacle? Two more banks, Wachovia and Bank of America, have announced more than 100,000 more customers may be affected by data thieves.

According to an AP wire story, this brings the total number of potential victims to nearly 700,000, or so says the police in Hackensack, NJ, where the investigation has been underway for several weeks.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, MCI announced that a laptop containing the names and Social Security numbers of 16,500 current and former MCI employees was stolen from the car of an MCI financial analyst.