FTC Shuts Down Pop-Up Extortion Firm

An anonymous reader writes "The FTC has shut down D Squared, a company that's been spamming via the Windows Messenger Pop-Up Service. In some cases, ads would pop-up every 10 minutes, and only advertised a $30 product that disabled similar pop-up ads. The FTC is slamming the extortion gauntlet on them. Interestingly, the FTC only caught onto all this because one of their own commissioners was among those getting spammed."

Comments

Full FTC press release

[John3]

is here.

Re:Thats what we get for tolerating advertisements

[letxa2000]

If you don't like a billboard, then buy the property on which it is located and tear down the billboard. But you are hard-pressed to claim that the billboard interfered with your work or cost you money.

It's funny seeing people not complain about billboards or saying that they are ok. These are people that haven't lived in a BBRE (BillBoard Rich Environment).

As I said elsewhere in this thread, move to Mexico for awhile. There are days I literally feel claustrophobic because of the saturation of the skyline (at all levels... ground level, 30 feet, 100 fet) with advertisements. Yes, I tune them out. You HAVE to tune them out. They've gone past the point of "they don't notice it but will remember it subconsciously." There are so many that they are just a blur of color as you drive by... They're on corners, on tops of residential and commercial rooftops, on stand-alone supports that some business decided to mount in the middle of their microscopic parking lot, painted on brick walls, hanging from or mounted above pedestrian bridges, overpasses--and most of them are at least partially blocked by other billboards anyway. It's like being in Time Square but without the general coolness and flashing lights that makes Time Square cool rather than an advertising eyesore.

Really... It's something I think every politician in the U.S. should have as part of their "initiation" or "orientation." Live in Mexico for a week and truly observe how bad advertising can be if not carefully checked.

I'm not sure if there's less advertising in the U.S. than in Mexico because advertisers intentionally don't want to saturate to this level and numb everyone completely or because the local governments *DO* have a decent level of restriction that prevents it from getting this bad.