The Federal Trade Committee has filed a complaint in federal court asking that two Internet advertising and software firms be shut down. The activities of New Hampshire resident Sanford Wallace and his two firms -- Seismic Entertainment Productions and SmartBot.Net -- are some of the most egregious in the spyware field, Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told NewsFactor.
The operation of the spyware distributed by Wallace is very complicated, Schwartz explained. In addition, it has operated in different ways over the months. Perhaps the worst allegation is that of direct fraud. Some consumers assert that they were asked to pay US$30 to stop the pop-up ads repeatedly appearing on their computers. Those pop-ups originated from the same web of companies and advertisements originating them. Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter are two of the software programs marketed by Wallace's firms. In some cases, said Schwartz, pieces of software were downloaded to consumer computers without their knowledge or purchase. The company used security holes in Internet Explorer to take control of some operations on computers of users who clicked on particular ads.
The case is the first in the spyware arena to target a company for downloading code to a user's machine without permission. There are no laws against spyware at the national level.
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