From spam king to spymaster?
In what could prove to be one of the great second acts in Internet history, erstwhile king of spam Sanford Wallace takes center stage this week as exhibit A in a federal crackdown on invasive online advertising software.
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced an aggressive new strategy in taking on alleged purveyors of "spyware," a vague term that describes software that may track unsuspecting Web surfers and bombard them with advertisements or even steal log-in information and passwords.
In the first action of its kind, the agency last week filed a civil lawsuit against Wallace, charging the admitted former junk e-mailer with fraudulently installing advertising and other software on consumers' computers through his network of Web sites. The lawsuit was the centerpiece of Tuesday's FTC announcement.
"Spyware spoils the online experience for millions of computer users, and even worse could be an obstacle to the growth of e-commerce," said Lydia Parnes, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "This may be our first case (against spyware), but it won't be our last."
