The Pure Software Act of 2006: "100 years ago, Congress passed a law requiring honest labeling of food and drugs. Now the time has come to do the same for software."
The problem with regulations to protect users from unsavory software installations are the same as regulations to stop spam. The worst perpetrators don't care about the law and place their bets that they won't be caught. The Internet is less like a supermarket grocery store chain, and more like a booth in an open air market on the out skirts of a town in the old west with only one sheriff.
My dad always said that locking your door just keeps the honest people out. If someone really wants to get into your house, they will. Regulations won't stop the unsavory folks who infest our computers with backdoors, Trojans and ad systems. It will only irritate the honest software developers who are trying to provide useful software.
As long as customers are not scared away by a labeling system that alerts them to actual features of the software then maybe this might be a good idea. But the fact is that the real trouble makers won't honestly label their software. They are not honest in any of their other dealings, so why start now?
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