New York Attorney General Cracking Down on Spyware

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The windowless, cluttered 10-by-15-foot storeroom on the third floor of a Manhattan government building seems an unlikely setting for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's next big thing. But purveyors of spyware and adware and even the major companies that advertise in the surreptitious downloads fear exactly that from the Democrat dubbed the "Sheriff of Wall Street."

"There has been a vacuum of enforcement to date," said Benjamin Edelman, a Harvard University student who specializes in spyware research.

Though Spitzer may get complaints he is attacking legitimate companies, Edelman said, the "fact is, there are lots of surprisingly big companies making serious money from these tactics. So Spitzer's intervention in users' defense is much appreciated and quite helpful."