The German state of Bavaria has approved laws that allow the police to plant spyware on the computers of suspected terrorists. While German federal laws restrict the government to infecting computers with email, Bavarian laws allow police to enter a suspect’s home to physically infect the machine. According to The Register, Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann “gave short shrift to [privacy] objections, stating that Bavaria is leading the field in ‘internal security’ in becoming the first German state to approve the plan.”

This step taken by the Bavarian government counters a ruling earlier this year by Judge Hans-Juergen Papier in North Rhine-Westphalia. He opined that under regular circumstances spying on individuals was unconstitutional, and that permission of a judge would be required prior to implementing this type of surveillance during extreme situations.

In 2007, the internet was talking, though not over VOIP, about the Bavarian government looking to monitor and record Skype phone calls. Documents leaked through Wikileaks showed the thrifty Bavarian government haggling to get a better price on the products needed to invade their citizen’s computers.

The FTC this week reached a settlement with the owners of AdultFriendFinder.com over misuse of pornographic pop-up ads. The ads covered users’ full screens and showed pornographic content to users of search engines, including many who had never requested an explicit site. According to the FTC’s statement, some of the ads were distributed through badware.

As part of the settlement, the company behind AdultFriendFinder.com has committed to require consent before showing ads or sexual content. The company must also weed out any of its affiliates who don’t do the same, making it harder for them to pass the buck if there is future abuse.

The FTC’s statement says the practice of displaying explicit ads without consent is a violation of the FTC Act, but does not specify whether the core violation is of consent to being shown ads, consent to being shown sexually explicit imagery, or both.