South Korea’s Fed-Up Ministry of Information and Communication (FUMIC) says if you cross this line, it’ll cost you US$50,000 along with five years off your life:

Spyware includes malicious programs that change users homepage on opening their browser; disturb, suspend or delete normal programs; prevent the installation of normal programs; download unwanted programs; remove the security programs of the operating system; hinder users from deleting or closing the spyware in question; and collect and send information in the computer or displayed on the monitor.

Sounds pretty good, till you get to the part that covers Outlook, Norton Antivirus, Firefox, Windows Update, and just about every other program you install on a Windows machine:

“…disturb, suspend or delete normal programs; prevent the installation of normal programs; download unwanted programs; remove the security programs of the operating system; hinder users from deleting or closing the spyware in question; and collect and send information in the computer…”

“No. You’ve got it wrong,” you say,”The software’s gotta be malicious.”

Who says it’s not?

See for yourself at Digital Chosunilbo.