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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Computer "spyware" is noxious and harmful and must be stopped as soon as people can figure out exactly what it is, members of a Senate subcommittee said on Tuesday.

Programs that secretly track computer users' activities are becoming an online scourge rivaling "spam" e-mail and should be outlawed before they prompt consumers to abandon the Internet, members of the Senate communications subcommittee said.

But a bill sponsored by committee members will need to define the problem precisely to avoid outlawing pop-up ads and other annoying but essentially harmless technologies, consumer and business advocates said.

"We really have to spend a little time, take a deep breath and define what we're after here," said Jerry Berman, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a consumer-advocacy group.

Like the congressional debate about "spam" e-mail last year, much rests on the definition of what constitutes legitimate marketing activity and what should be outlawed.

Some online advertisers and song-swapping networks like Kazaa place programs on users' computers to monitor their activity, or harness their processors for other activities.

Other programs secretly track users' keystrokes to lift passwords and credit-card numbers, or sell "fixes" for software problems they create.

At least one state legislature has already passed an anti-spyware bill, prompting a business group to call for a national law to avoid conflicts.

"There should be a single federal standard that preempts existing state laws," said Robert Holleyman, president of the Business Software Alliance.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Conrad Burns would require companies to obtain permission before installing a piece of software on a consumer's computer, and provide an easy way for the consumer to remove the software if he wished.

"It's my computer, it's my private property," the Montana Republican said. "I bought it and paid for it for my use only, not some leech."    Continued ...

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