Neowin.net - FTC Settles Case Involving Windows Pop-Up Ads

FTC Settles Case Involving Windows Pop-Up Ads

Posted by malebolgia on 10 August 2004 - 16:20 · 16 comments & 1175 views

Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Squared Solutions reached an agreement regarding Squared Solutions business practices. Squared Solutions used Microsoft’s Windows Messenger to sell pop-up blocking software to consumers (which would show up even if the user wasn’t surfing the web). To put an end to this a federal judge halted all operations of the San Diego based company in November 2003. For those who don't know Microsoft’s Windows Messenger was a feature built to allow network administrators to communicate with others on the network.

The FTC claimed that Squared Solutions practices violated the U.S. consumer protection law. According to the settlement Squared Solutions is not allowed to send pop-up ads through Windows Messenger Service, and surprisingly enough there will be no financial penalties. It wasn't just the pop-up ads that gave users headaches. No, in most cases it caused applications to freeze up, computer crashes, and caused users to lose data.

It's good to see that FTC is tackling new areas like pop-up ads, but I personally would have liked to see this company get fined. If their little business tactic caused my computer to crash, or even lost important data I'd want payback. With the way lawsuits are now a days I wouldn't be surprised if Squared Solutions did get sued. Most likely by a group of angry consumers.

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"The PSP is a portable game machine, and people may think it's oriented towards playing simple games, but it really has the same hardware performance as the PS2," comments Yamauchi in the interview. "Since we're already developing the GT4's system on the PS2 hardware, we're planning to port that directly to the PSP."

Yamauchi broadened the discussion to PSP games in general. "There's basically two ways of making games for the PSP. One way is to develop an original new game, which in general will be limited in its content since the price of PSP games aren't going to be too high, meaning the game's development budget will also be limited. We're going to be taking the second method, which is to take a system from a major title, and effectively sliding it onto the PSP hardware," he said.

Yamauchi also said that Gran Turismo 4 for the PS2 is currently still around 75 percent complete and that he plans to release it by the end of the year. Given that fact, though, it is unlikely whether the PSP version will be finished in time for the PSP launch in Japan this fall and in the US in early 2005.

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(3 replies) #1 Posted by Colonel_Angus on 10 Aug 2004 - 16:34: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.1) Gecko/20040802

Whats a Pop-Up Ad?

(1 reply) #2 Posted by Atmos42 on 10 Aug 2004 - 17:01: Cute, but this type of ad is browser independent. It uses the built in Windows messaging service that is normally used for administrators to send out messages to client PC's. So you kind of come off looking a little ignorant there. No offense.

(2 replies) #3 Posted by Colonel_Angus on 10 Aug 2004 - 17:04: what part of "FreeBSD i386" do you not understand?

#4 Posted by Qwakui on 10 Aug 2004 - 17:28: Dude it's the Messenger service, completely different from Windows Messenger

(1 reply) #5 Posted by MitchShrader on 10 Aug 2004 - 17:29: Being as you are Not using an OS thats mainstream commercial, you don't (obviously) participate in the issues relevant to that use. OK. But why exactly is that cool? My radio doesn't pick up tv ads either. I don't see billboards on highways I don't drive down. Long as I use a abacus and a sundial, electricity bills aren't my problem. Got it? To say 'I'm not part of that' is true, but... so what? It isn't any sort of commentary that adds to a discussion.

I'm gonna bet that, as Linux OS's enter the desktop market more significantly in the next few years, advertising issues DO arise, (there's got to be some way to pay for features, advertising is a natural) .. sure it won't be identical to Windows advertising, but.. GMail text ads aren't OS dependent are they?

Sure there are reasons to not use commercial OS's, (and reasons not to eat meat, and reasons not to drive cars, and reasons not to vote for subgenius government) but SOMEHOW most folks manage to avoid decisions based on those reasons.

#6 Posted by Andareed on 10 Aug 2004 - 18:55: Note that messenger service is now disabled by default in Windows XP SP2

(2 replies) #7 Posted by Neb Okla on 10 Aug 2004 - 21:47: Once again, a government agency proves itself inept and unable to solve the problem - only to have the problem fixed by the private sector.

Why am I paying taxes to an FTC that "solves" such problems in such inept ways?

Deren seems to cheer them in the article - expressing how glad he is that the FTC is nosing into stuff they don't understand. I can't see why. Any time the government gets involved in regulating technology it either results in a waste of money or a terrible inconvenience for the general public (DMCA is a good example - and CAN SPAM hasn't stopped Spam from hitting MY mailbox - how about yours?!?)

Who owns you?

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