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.