For Once Online Gamblers Will Cheer Spitzer
Published: Friday, May 06, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
FOR ONCE ONLINE GAMBLERS WILL CHEER SPITZER
NY Attorney General is
taking on the spyware sites
Internet users fed up with the barrage of
uninvited and unwelcome advertising garbage dumped on their sites by uncaring
marketers will be pleased with news this week from New York, where the energetic
Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer is taking on the spyware merchants.
And
for once many players and Internet users in general will be cheering on the man
who did his damnedest to screw up Internet gaming last year.
New York
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has filed a lawsuit against Intermix Media, charging
the online marketer with illegally disseminating spyware programs.
Internet-security
experts say the lawsuit is unlikely to slow the deluge of stealthy programs that
launch pop-up ads, track Web-browser usage and involuntarily steer consumers to
unsavory Web sites. But it's a start.
Intermix operates about 40 Web sites
that supply online games, greeting cards, social networking, trivia and jokes.
But according to Webroot, maker of anti-spyware software, there are more than
220,000 sites distributing spyware, up from 60,000 at the start of the year.
Most often they feature music file-sharing, gambling, video games, online
dating, porn, screen savers and trivia. Typically, visitors are asked to agree
to usage rules that open a PC to infection with spyware. But not always. And sometimes
the extent of the problem this creates for the user is not clear when he or she
accepts.
"Taking down 40 Web sites, that's not even a drop in the
bucket," says Webroot CFO Mike Irwin.
Intermix issued a statement
denying that it "promotes or condones" spyware. The Los Angeles-based
company characterised the lawsuit as a dispute about how it discloses its practices
to consumers.
Intermix general counsel Christopher Lipp said he was "still
hopeful" of reaching a settlement. "Many of the practices being challenged
were instituted under prior leadership, and Intermix has been voluntarily and
proactively improving these applications and related consumer disclosure,"
he said.
In a statement, Spitzer, who is running for governor of New York,
said he was prosecuting Intermix to improve consumer privacy online and to aid
online commerce.
According to the lawsuit, free software on Intermix Web
sites secretly installed programs that generated advertisements. One known as
KeenValue delivered pop-up ads; another, dubbed IncrediFind, redirected visitors
to certain Web sites. Spitzer is seeking a court order restricting Intermix's
business practices.
