FTC Wacks(?) Spammer

[Promethus]

FTC Punishes Messenger Pop-Ups

The Federal Trade Commission has issued a temporary restraining order on a California company accused of using a particularly annoying type of pop-up ad -- which it used to push software to block pop-up ads.

"The defendants created the problem that they proposed to solve," said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

The FTC's filing accuses San Diego-based D Squared Solutions LLC of unlawfully exploiting the "Messenger Service" feature in Windows. This software, unrelated to Microsoft's instant-messaging program, lets network administrators display alerts on a user's screen. Home users do not need to leave this feature on; instructions for disabling it are available at the FTC's site.

https://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/popalrt.htm

[Kuciwalker]

What an odd DL...

DL DANCE!

[Ben Kenobi]

Eh, you may want to hold off on the dancing.

[Kuciwalker]

Any settler who posts in the OTF is by definition a DL

[Shi Huangdi]

Prometheus has been here for awhile.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by skywalker
What an odd DL...

Calm down newbie

[mrmitchell]

Something in my gut tells me to wish this and other recent antispam victories hadn't happened. Yes, there's one less spammer, but do we really want precedent for the government to control the Internet?

(Yeah, yeah, we've got enough already, but exactly: we don't need any more as it is)

---

What they did was completely legal, IMO. And there was a way to turn it off, too. It's nothing different from those pop-ups for pop-up blockers that you see, or ads from adware or spyware that say they stop adware or spyware. A business creates an annoyance and offers to get rid of it.

Now, if there was no free easy way to get rid of it, then I could understand shutting them down. But there is...and with all the people who've said "how do i turn off these annoying pop-ups" and have had the turn-off (of Messenger) process given to them, I wouldn't exactly classify it as rarely known or difficult to do

[Kuciwalker]

mrmitchell - this is the technicaly legal version of releasing a disease so you can make money selling a cure.

[mrmitchell]

Well thanks for admitting it's technically legal

Pop-ups aren't a disease, and there is more than one cure...

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
Well thanks for admitting it's technically legal

Pop-ups aren't a disease, and there is more than one cure...

http://www.1uffakind.com/media/popuphell/

Click go, and then come back and tell me it isn't a disease.

https://www.kaynor.net/fun/samples/hell.html

[Promethus]

Gee I wonder just who's DL I might be? Is there a user here named "Fruit Loops" of "Corn Flakes" or "Special-K"?

[MichaeltheGreat]

There are lots of Froot Loops here.

[Nubclear]