In February, Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-Florida), chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, attached an amendment that would exempt software cookies, including third-party cookies, from the spyware definitions covered by the bill.

That amendment also exempted embedded ads on web pages from the bill's requirement that online ads (often pop-ups that appear without a site's sanction) include identifying information so consumers can find and remove the software causing them.

On Wednesday, Stearns introduced a new amendment that would create another exemption, this time for web "beacons" (HTML and JavaScript that facilitate the ordinary construction of web pages but don't monitor consumers' behavior or gather information about those users). Such code wouldn't be considered spyware under the bill's new provisions.