Apparently a bill was just passed known as the "Internet Spyware Preventation Act". Basically, now whenever a company or person installs spyware onto our computers without our knowledge they can be sentenced up to 5 years in prison, and possibly will have to pay civil pentalties.
I doubt this will completely get rid of spyware, but it definetely is a good start.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ternet_spyware