Should parents, employers, and government be allowed to use spyware to monitor for bad behavior?

Interesting topic isn’t it! Usage of Spyware by itself should be made illegal in any case, as it invades privacy. Should a software is used for tracking bad behavior, it should be defined clearly in the user agreement that the user will accept as binding.

I am not sure whether we can compare monitoring softwares that an employer uses for tracking user activities, to a Spyware. I support the move from the employer to use well defined and well educated monitoring policies. I have experience in my workplace where the network performance got improved by 30% from the day the company implemented the network monitoring policy.

It is sad that software that comes to counter Spywares, themselves installs malicious code to track user behavior for their own advantage. More stringent laws are necessary that clearly defines the issues and causes, prevention mechanisms and acceptable user agreements.