Whoa; this is something. USA Today: “Spyware can constitute illegal trespass on home computers”.
This was ruled by a Judge in Chicago under the “trespass to chattels” (personal property) doctrine in the lawsuit Sotelo v. DirectRevenue.
In the suit:
the plaintiff filed a complaint against various defendants alleging that, without his consent, the defendants caused spyware to be downloaded onto his computer. In a nutshell, the plaintiff alleged that the spyware tracked his Internet use, invaded his privacy, and caused damage to his computer.
The plaintiff alleged the following five causes of action: trespass to chattels, consumer fraud, unjust enrichment, negligence and computer tampering, and he sought monetary damages and injunctive relief prohibiting the offending conduct.
This is quite interesting: will be fun to see how it all shakes out. Prior articles about spyware can be found in my “Deep Fixes for Adware, Clotware, Spyware”. Among the more interesting are:
I'll be watching this one.