Both sides agree it was an accident.

>Israel apologized for the attack, saying that USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship.[5] Both the Israeli and United States governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity.[6]

There are 200 or so nations on our planet.

How many of those nations have governments which believe that their own army, air force, & navy should be unable to buy (say) guns, bombs, and torpedoes? Vs. having to hire engineers to design them, then build weapon factories, then build all of their own weapons.

My assertion is that zero-ish of those governments want such legal restrictions.

(And obviously, actual legal restrictions on the sale of spyware might be similarly unpopular, with the people who actually write the our world's laws.)

Yes, there is: the CFAA. Corporations and the government have even weaponized criminal complaints against individuals under the law.

> This is a civil suit between two companies, it is not a regulation

The venue in which regulation is enforced does not change its status as a regulation. The distinction between criminal and civil is irrelevant here. (Notwithstanding the possibility of a corrupt judge) Meta would not have been able to continue their suit had there not been a regulation.

> had they actually violated the law, it would have been a criminal prosecution

No, had a prosecutor wanted to pursue an indictment, it would have been a criminal prosecution. A prosecutor's willingness to enforce a law and bring trial is at their discretion. In the same way that charges don't necessarily indicate criminality, a lack thereof doesn't necessarily indicate the absence of wrongdoing.

> civil damages are not government regulation.

Civil laws are regulation. The judge is the regulating authority who enforces the penalty for being out of compliance with those laws, which comes in the form of ordering money damages in this situation.

> if you can simply be anonymous, you won't even break the law as you sell to any party

Yes and maybe the fact that they're anonymous brings it it to the level of criminality in a prosecutor's eyes. That desire to conceal their identity could the turn preponderance of the evidence (civil) into beyond a reasonable doubt (criminal).

Or it could always stay in the civil system. The criminal system is political just like anything else. See above.