Federal Trade Commission Sues Calif. Co. For IM Pop-Up Ads
 

U.S. Sues Over 'Pop-Up' Ad Software

WASHINGTON - Regulators disclosed a new legal campaign Thursday against an especially annoying practice for delivering "pop-up" advertisements to Internet users, suing a California company for selling software to block the same kinds of ads the company was sending.

The director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Howard Beales, accused the company of "high-tech extortion," saying its practices took Internet advertising "beyond annoyance to a new level."

The FTC said it obtained a temporary restraining order against D-Squared Solutions LLC of San Diego from a federal court in Baltimore. The FTC's legal papers accuse D-Squared of unlawfully exploiting the "Messenger" feature of Microsoft Corp.'s popular Windows software.

Windows Messenger ? which is unrelated to Microsoft's instant-messaging software that uses the same name ? commonly allows network administrators to display message windows on a user's computer screen, such as a warning that a company's Internet connection might be having problems.

But Internet marketers have seized upon the technology to display intrusive advertising messages with offers for software and pornography, unless computer users manually turn off the technology or use protective firewall software to block out unwanted messages.

I will vote for you as todays news spammer :thumbsup

only in America...

Finally somebody get's fucked for that Messanger exploit (or whatever).

I had to tell a ton of my friends how to disable that fucking stupid service.

I can in some ways admire the creativity when that exploit first came out but as usual it went to far.

Advertising a fix for the same problem they were exploiting at a fee was bullshit.

I got tired of helping everyone disable that feature as well. What a pain.

The defendants? Web site allegedly offered software that would allow buyers to send pop-ups to 135,000 Internet addresses per hour, along with a database of more than two billion unique addresses.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/cv3108.htm

:1orglaugh

Holy shit. That's called bulk mailing.

Wonder what the conversions would be on 2 Billion pop-ups?

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

that's the IP spam right? It's worthless.

it's the lowest possible return because there is no way to put a clickable link in the messsage... it requires either a type in or a cut and paste to actually get people to a website. The only good thing is that it gets in people's face, and they HAVE to deal with it. But that just makes them hate you even more.

Alex

2 billion emails. Send the fucking money :thumbsup

Wargames, not EMAILS... ADDRESSES, as in IP addresses (which is needed to use the messanger thing).

You can't mail them.

Alex

OK so they sell software that you can use the spam the shit out of people.

Then they sell software to the consumers to block the spam.


Sort of like the guy who invented the fuzzbuster. (A radar detector for your car so you wouldn't get caught speeding)

Then this guy goes to police departments and sells them new radars that the fuzzbuster's can't detect.

Then he creates the "super fuzz buster" which can detect the new radars.

Capitalism at work :winkwink:

my money says they'll agree not to do it anymore and that'll be the end of that.

there's nothing illegal about messaging people, there's also nothing illegal about selling a cure to a problem.

now if they had CREATED the exploit (e.g. hacked people's systems in some way) it would be a different story, but all they did was the equivalent of leaving ads for fences with locks on peoples doors.

Good for them.

I also hate to point out that this FTC method is just one more way of driving business offshore.

Do you think hacking should be legal?

If these guys were using an exploit in the operating system, then what is the difference between them and someone who hacks a server but doesn't do any harm?

If someone leaves their door unlocked, you can't legally walk inside and put ads all over their house.

another one bites the dust