Adware Abusers to Get Scarlet Letter Treatment
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Written By Reprise Media | February 10, 2006 | Share This
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The Federal Trade Commission might be getting into the shame game; according to News.com, Commissioner Jon Leibowitz and Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras announced yesterday the FTC’s possible intention to publicly humiliate companies that advertise via spyware, or for that matter any pop-up adware that’s sneakily installed on (and frequently crippling to) computers.
Majoras and Leibowitz trumpeted the idea at an event held by the Anti-Spyware Coalition (for those of you keeping score, that’s the one with Microsoft, McAfee and Yahoo!, not the one with Google, Lenovo and Sun - those guys are the Stop Badware Coalition). Majoras was especially explicit in her condemnation of the notorious practice, even raising the possibility of litigation against the worst offenders:
“The dissemination of harmful, unremovable programs that frustrate consumers’ ability to control their own computers is digital carjacking, and we intend to vigorously prosecute it.”
…If only traditional carjacking could be sued and embarrassed out of existence. Effectiveness aside, the government is a bit late to the game here - the story rightly points out that spyware watchdog Ben Edelman has been outing prominent adware abusers for years - and their talk sounds very tough for actions they haven’t yet decided to take. AOL’s Jules Polonetsky indicated that consumer disapproval of spyware has already forced companies to be careful about how they advertise, and to deliberately vet their advertising subcontractors to weed out the unscrupulous.
“In today’s networked world you have to do due diligence to ensure your brand does not show up in an offensive location,” he said (we’re pretty sure he’s talking about an adware pop-up). So at the very least, many big companies are already aware of the spyware nuisance (just in case the FTC’s harangue turns out to be nothing but lipservice). And if Uncle Sam is serious, let’s just hope they’re careful about who they smear. As Techdirt notes, “if they falsely named someone that could cause some pretty big problems as well.”
Topics: Advertising: Online |