U.S. Regulators Go After Pop-Up Advertiser
Nov. 7 -- In this week's Cybershake, we look at the latest move by federal regulators to stop a particularly annoying online advertising trick. Plus, we note Microsoft's latest attempt to stop hackers — with cold, hard cash.
FTC Cans a Pop-Up Spammer
Tired of pop-up advertising online? You're not the only one. In fact, U.S. regulators are finally getting into the act.
On Thursday, The Federal Trade Commission has gone to court seeking an injunction against D-Squared Solutions in San Diego. Howard Beales, director of consumer protection at the FTC, said that the cyber-marketer was using a particularly sneaky form of pop-up ads that exploited a feature in Microsoft Windows software called Messenger Service.
The function was originally designed to allow office computer managers to talk to other computer users on their network — to warn of a printer problem, for example. But unscrupulous online advertisers have discovered they can use the feature to send unsolicited commercials to anyone on the Internet.
And according to the FTC, D-Squared's ads were particularly troublesome.
"The defendants sent their messages to consumers as often as every few minutes," said Beales. "The barrage of messages caused some consumers to lose data, suffer application freezes, or crashes."
To add insult to injury, the FTC claims that the pop-up ads being pitched by D-Squared was for so-called ad-blocking software.
"What we charge is the violation here is the sending the message for no other purpose than to try to charge you to stop sending the message," said Beales. "'I'll beat you and I'll stop beating you if you pay.' We call that extortion."
Katherine McKechnie, a consumer who filed the original complaint that led to the FTC's action, couldn't agree more.
"I feel that people that are sending these messages are infringing on my rights and everyone else's rights to use their computers," said McKechnie. "They know that they're blocking the screen and the only solution apparently is to pay the $29.99 or whatever it is to buy the service that they're selling which turns off their own messages."
