Advertising.com, Inc., and John Ferber; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order To Aid Public Comment, 46175-46177 [05-15684]
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 152 / Tuesday, August 9, 2005 / Notices
additional voting shares of Union State
Holding Company, Wilmington,
Delaware, and Union State Bank,
Florence, Texas.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, August 2, 2005.
Robert deV. Frierson,
Deputy Secretary of the Board.
[FR Doc. 05–15704 Filed 8–8–05; 8:45 am]
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, August 3, 2005.
Robert deV. Frierson,
Deputy Secretary of the Board.
[FR Doc. 05–15677 Filed 8–8–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6210–01–S
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
BILLING CODE 6210–01–S
Formations of, Acquisitions by, and
Mergers of Bank Holding Companies
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
The companies listed in this notice
have applied to the Board for approval,
pursuant to the Bank Holding Company
Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.)
(BHC Act), Regulation Y (12 CFR Part
225), and all other applicable statutes
and regulations to become a bank
holding company and/or to acquire the
assets or the ownership of, control of, or
the power to vote shares of a bank or
bank holding company and all of the
banks and nonbanking companies
owned by the bank holding company,
including the companies listed below.
The applications listed below, as well
as other related filings required by the
Board, are available for immediate
inspection at the Federal Reserve Bank
indicated. The application also will be
available for inspection at the offices of
the Board of Governors. Interested
persons may express their views in
writing on the standards enumerated in
the BHC Act (12 U.S.C. 1842(c)). If the
proposal also involves the acquisition of
a nonbanking company, the review also
includes whether the acquisition of the
nonbanking company complies with the
standards in section 4 of the BHC Act
(12 U.S.C. 1843). Unless otherwise
noted, nonbanking activities will be
conducted throughout the United States.
Additional information on all bank
holding companies may be obtained
from the National Information Center
website at www.ffiec.gov/nic/.
Unless otherwise noted, comments
regarding each of these applications
must be received at the Reserve Bank
indicated or the offices of the Board of
Governors not later than September 1,
2005.
A. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
(Richard Walker, Community Affairs
Officer) P.O. Box 55882, Boston,
Massachusetts 02106-2204:
1. Monson Financial Services Corp.,
and Monson Financial Services MHC,
both of Monson, Massachusetts; to
become bank holding companies by
acquiring Monson Savings Bank,
Monson, Massachusetts.
B. Federal Reserve Bank of New York
(Jay Bernstein, Bank Supervision
Officer) 33 Liberty Street, New York,
New York 10045-0001:
Formations of, Acquisitions by, and
Mergers of Bank Holding Companies
The companies listed in this notice
have applied to the Board for approval,
pursuant to the Bank Holding Company
Act of 1956 (12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.)
(BHC Act), Regulation Y (12 CFR Part
225), and all other applicable statutes
and regulations to become a bank
holding company and/or to acquire the
assets or the ownership of, control of, or
the power to vote shares of a bank or
bank holding company and all of the
banks and nonbanking companies
owned by the bank holding company,
including the companies listed below.
The applications listed below, as well
as other related filings required by the
Board, are available for immediate
inspection at the Federal Reserve Bank
indicated. The application also will be
available for inspection at the offices of
the Board of Governors. Interested
persons may express their views in
writing on the standards enumerated in
the BHC Act (12 U.S.C. 1842(c)). If the
proposal also involves the acquisition of
a nonbanking company, the review also
includes whether the acquisition of the
nonbanking company complies with the
standards in section 4 of the BHC Act
(12 U.S.C. 1843). Unless otherwise
noted, nonbanking activities will be
conducted throughout the United States.
Additional information on all bank
holding companies may be obtained
from the National Information Center
website at www.ffiec.gov/nic/.
Unless otherwise noted, comments
regarding each of these applications
must be received at the Reserve Bank
indicated or the offices of the Board of
Governors not later than September 2,
2005.
A. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
(Andre Anderson, Vice President) 1000
Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia
30303:
1. Northside Bancshares, Inc.,
Adairsville, Georgia; to become a bank
holding company by acquiring 100
percent of the voting shares of Northside
Bank, Adairsville, Georgia.
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15:52 Aug 08, 2005
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46175
1. IA Bancorp, Inc., Iselin, New Jersey;
to become a bank holding company by
acquiring 100 percent of the voting
shares of Indus American Bank, Iselin,
New Jersey.
C. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
(Andre Anderson, Vice President) 1000
Peachtree Street, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia
30303:
1. CCB Financial Corporation,
Jonesboro, Georgia; to become a bank
holding company by acquiring 100
percent of the voting shares of
Community Capital Bank, Jonesboro,
Georgia.
2. Northside Bancshares, Inc.,
Adairsville, Georgia; to become a bank
holding company by acquiring 100
percent of the voting shares of Northside
Bank, Adairsville, Georgia (in
organization).
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, August 2, 2005.
Robert deV. Frierson,
Deputy Secretary of the Board.
[FR Doc. 05–15705 Filed 8–8–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6210–01–S
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
[File No. 042–3196]
Advertising.com, Inc., and John
Ferber; Analysis of Proposed Consent
Order To Aid Public Comment
Federal Trade Commission.
Proposed consent agreement.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this
matter settles alleged violations of
Federal law prohibiting unfair or
deceptive acts or practices or unfair
methods of competition. The attached
Analysis to Aid Public Comment
describes both the allegations in the
draft complaint and the terms of the
consent order—embodied in the consent
agreement—that would settle these
allegations.
Comments must be received on
or before August 31, 2005.
ADDRESSES: Interested parties are
invited to submit written comments.
Comments should refer to
‘‘Advertising.com, Inc., et al., File No.
042 3196,’’ to facilitate the organization
of comments. A comment filed in paper
form should include this reference both
in the text and on the envelope, and
should be mailed or delivered to the
following address: Federal Trade
Commission/Office of the Secretary,
Room 135–H, 600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580.
Comments containing confidential
material must be filed in paper form,
DATES:
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46176
Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 152 / Tuesday, August 9, 2005 / Notices
must be clearly labeled ‘‘Confidential,’’
and must comply with Commission
Rule 4.9(c). 16 CFR 4.9(c) (2005).1 The
FTC is requesting that any comment
filed in paper form be sent by courier or
overnight service, if possible, because
U.S. postal mail in the Washington area
and at the Commission is subject to
delay due to heightened security
precautions. Comments that do not
contain any nonpublic information may
instead be filed in electronic form as
part of or as an attachment to e-mail
messages directed to the following email box: consentagreement@ftc.gov.
The FTC Act and other laws the
Commission administers permit the
collection of public comments to
consider and use in this proceeding as
appropriate. All timely and responsive
public comments, whether filed in
paper or electronic form, will be
considered by the Commission, and will
be available to the public on the FTC
Web site, to the extent practicable, at
https://www.ftc.gov. As a matter of
discretion, the FTC makes every effort to
remove home contact information for
individuals from the public comments it
receives before placing those comments
on the FTC Web site. More information,
including routine uses permitted by the
Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC’s
privacy policy, at https://www.ftc.gov/
ftc/privacy.htm.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Thomas B. Pahl (202) 326–2128 or
Michael Ostheimer (202) 326–2699,
Bureau of Consumer Protection, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20580.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant
to section 6(f) of the Federal Trade
Commission Act, 38 Stat. 721, 15 U.S.C.
46(f), and section 2.34 of the
Commission Rules of Practice, 16 CFR
2.34, notice is hereby given that the
above-captioned consent agreement
containing a consent order to cease and
desist, having been filed with and
accepted, subject to final approval, by
the Commission, has been placed on the
public record for a period of thirty (30)
days. The following Analysis to Aid
Public Comment describes the terms of
the consent agreement, and the
allegations in the complaint. An
electronic copy of the full text of the
consent agreement package can be
obtained from the FTC Home Page (for
1 The comment must be accompanied by an
explicit request for confidential treatment,
including the factual and legal basis for the request,
and must identify the specific portions of the
comment to be withheld from the public record.
The request will be granted or denied by the
Commission’s General Counsel, consistent with
applicable law and the public interest. See
Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
VerDate jul<14>2003
15:52 Aug 08, 2005
Jkt 205001
August 3, 2005), on the World Wide
Web, at https://www.ftc.gov/os/2005/08/
index.htm. A paper copy can be
obtained from the FTC Public Reference
Room, Room 130–H, 600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580,
either in person or by calling (202) 326–
2222.
Public comments are invited, and may
be filed with the Commission in either
paper or electronic form. All comments
should be filed as prescribed in the
ADDRESSES section above, and must be
received on or before the date specified
in the DATES section.
Analysis of Agreement Containing
Consent Order To Aid Public Comment
The Federal Trade Commission has
accepted, subject to final approval, an
agreement containing a consent order
from Advertising.com, Inc. and John
Ferber, individually and as an officer of
Advertising.com (together
‘‘respondents’’).
The proposed consent order has been
placed on the public record for thirty
(30) days for receipt of comments by
interested persons. Comments received
during this period will become part of
the public record. After thirty (30) days,
the Commission will again review the
agreement and the comments received,
and will decide whether it should
withdraw from the agreement or make
final the agreement’s proposed order.
Respondents advertised and
distributed computer software products,
including the SpyBlast computer
software product, which was advertised
as an Internet security program. This
matter concerns the allegation that
respondents failed to disclose
adequately that SpyBlast included
adware that caused consumers to
receive pop-up advertisements.
The Commission’s complaint alleges
that respondents disseminated ads for
SpyBlast that represented that because a
consumer’s computer was broadcasting
an Internet IP address, the computer
was at risk from hackers. According to
the complaint, consumers who clicked
on this advertisement were shown an
ActiveX ‘‘security warning’’ installation
box with a hyperlink describing
SpyBlast as ‘‘Personal Computer
Security and Protection Software from
unauthorized users’’ and telling them
‘‘once you agree to the License Terms
and Privacy Policy—click YES to
continue.’’ If a consumer clicked ‘‘Yes,’’
the software was installed, even if the
consumer had not clicked on the
hyperlink. Only if a consumer clicked
on the hyperlink describing SpyBlast as
‘‘Personal Computer Security and
Protection Software from unauthorized
users’’ before clicking ‘‘YES,’’ did
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SpyBlast’s End User Licensing
Agreement (‘‘EULA’’) appear. The EULA
contained a statement that consumers
agreed to receive marketing messages,
including pop-up ads, in exchange for
getting SpyBlast.
The complaint further alleges that
SpyBlast could also be downloaded
directly from the https://
www.SpyBlast.com Web site. At the
very bottom of the www.SpyBlast.com
home page, below several hyperlinks to
download SpyBlast, a small disclosure
stating that ‘‘In exchange for usage of
the SpyBlast software, user agrees to
receive * * * offers on behalf of
SpyBlast’s marketing partners’’
appeared.
According to the Commission’s
complaint, respondents downloaded
bundled adware onto the computers of
consumers who installed SpyBlast. The
adware collected information about
SpyBlast users, including URLs of
visited pages and the user’s IP address,
and this information allowed
respondents to send users
advertisements that they believed might
be of interest to them. Consumers
received a substantial number of pop-up
advertisements as result of respondents’
installation of this adware onto their
computers.
The complaint alleges that in
representing that SpyBlast is an Internet
security program, respondents failed to
disclose adequately that SpyBlast
included adware that caused consumers
to receive pop-up advertisements. The
complaint further alleges that the
presence of the bundled adware would
have been material to consumers in
their decision whether to install
SpyBlast, and, therefore, that the failure
to disclose adequately this material fact
was a deceptive practice. This allegation
regarding the disclosure of bundled
adware applies general Commission law
on deception, as enunciated in the
Federal Trade Commission Policy
Statement on Deception, appended to
Cliffdale Assocs., 103 F.T.C. 110, 174–
83 (1984). The application of this law in
an online context was illustrated in a
2000 FTC Staff Guidance Document, Dot
Com Disclosures: Information about
Online Advertising, which is available
at https://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/
buspubs/dotcom/index.pdf.
The proposed consent order contains
provisions designed to prevent
respondents from engaging in similar
acts and practices in the future. The
proposed order is designed specifically
to address the facts of the case at hand.
However, the limitation in the proposed
order to respondents’ software programs
whose principal function is to enhance
security or privacy should not be read
E:\FR\FM\09AUN1.SGM
09AUN1
Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 152 / Tuesday, August 9, 2005 / Notices
more broadly to suggest that the
requirement for clear and prominent
disclosure is necessarily limited to those
situations. Moreover, the problem here
was not the security software that
Advertising.com disseminated with its
adware. Instead, it was the respondents’
practice of downloading software onto
users’ computers, without adequate
notice and consent, that generated
repeated pop-up ads as the computer
users surfed the Web.
Part I of the proposed order prohibits
respondents from making any
representation about the performance,
benefits, efficacy, or features of SpyBlast
or any of respondents’ other executable
computer software programs whose
principal function is to enhance security
or privacy, unless respondents disclose
clearly and conspicuously that
consumers who install the program will
receive advertisements, if that is the
case.
Parts II through VI require
respondents to keep copies of relevant
advertisements and materials
substantiating claims made in the
advertisements; to provide copies of the
order to certain of their personnel; to
notify the Commission of changes in
corporate structure (for the corporate
respondents) and changes in
employment (for the individual
respondent) that might affect
compliance obligations under the order;
and to file compliance reports with the
Commission. Part VII provides that the
order will terminate after twenty (20)
years under certain circumstances.
The purpose of this analysis is to
facilitate public comment on the
proposed order, and it is not intended
to constitute an official interpretation of
the agreement and proposed order or to
modify in any way their terms.
By direction of the Commission.
Donald S. Clark,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05–15684 Filed 8–8–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750–01–P
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
[File No. 051–0029]
Penn National Gaming, Inc.; Analysis
of Proposed Consent Order To Aid
Public Comment
Federal Trade Commission.
Proposed consent agreement.
AGENCY:
ACTION:
SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this
matter settles alleged violations of
Federal law prohibiting unfair or
deceptive acts or practices or unfair
methods of competition. The attached
VerDate jul<14>2003
15:52 Aug 08, 2005
Jkt 205001
Analysis to Aid Public Comment
describes both the allegations in the
draft complaint and the terms of the
consent order—embodied in the consent
agreement—that would settle these
allegations.
Comments must be received on
or before August 25, 2005.
DATES:
Interested parties are
invited to submit written comments.
Comments should refer to ‘‘Penn
National Gaming, Inc., et al., File No.
051 0029,’’ to facilitate the organization
of comments. A comment filed in paper
form should include this reference both
in the text and on the envelope, and
should be mailed or delivered to the
following address: Federal Trade
Commission/Office of the Secretary,
Room 135–H, 600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580.
Comments containing confidential
material must be filed in paper form,
must be clearly labeled ‘‘Confidential,’’
and must comply with Commission
Rule 4.9(c). 16 CFR 4.9(c) (2005).1 The
FTC is requesting that any comment
filed in paper form be sent by courier or
overnight service, if possible, because
U.S. postal mail in the Washington area
and at the Commission is subject to
delay due to heightened security
precautions. Comments that do not
contain any nonpublic information may
instead be filed in electronic form as
part of or as an attachment to e-mail
messages directed to the following email box: consentagreement@ftc.gov.
The FTC Act and other laws the
Commission administers permit the
collection of public comments to
consider and use in this proceeding as
appropriate. All timely and responsive
public comments, whether filed in
paper or electronic form, will be
considered by the Commission, and will
be available to the public on the FTC
Web site, to the extent practicable, at
https://www.ftc.gov. As a matter of
discretion, the FTC makes every effort to
remove home contact information for
individuals from the public comments it
receives before placing those comments
on the FTC Web site. More information,
including routine uses permitted by the
Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC’s
privacy policy, at https://www.ftc.gov/
ftc/privacy.htm.
ADDRESSES:
1 The comment must be accompanied by an
explicit request for confidential treatment,
including the factual and legal basis for the request,
and must identify the specific portions of the
comment to be withheld from the public record.
The request will be granted or denied by the
Commission’s General Counsel, consistent with
applicable law and the public interest. See
Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
PO 00000
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46177
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Joseph Lipinsky, FTC Northwest Region,
Seattle (206) 220–4473.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant
to section 6(f) of the Federal Trade
Commission Act, 38 Stat. 721, 15 U.S.C.
46(f), and § 2.34 of the Commission
Rules of Practice, 16 CFR 2.34, notice is
hereby given that the above-captioned
consent agreement containing a consent
order to cease and desist, having been
filed with and accepted, subject to final
approval, by the Commission, has been
placed on the public record for a period
of thirty (30) days. The following
Analysis to Aid Public Comment
describes the terms of the consent
agreement, and the allegations in the
complaint. An electronic copy of the
full text of the consent agreement
package can be obtained from the FTC
Home Page (for July 27, 2005), on the
World Wide Web, at https://www.ftc.gov/
os/2005/07/index.htm. A paper copy
can be obtained from the FTC Public
Reference Room, Room 130–H, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20580, either in person
or by calling (202) 326–2222.
Public comments are invited, and may
be filed with the Commission in either
paper or electronic form. All comments
should be filed as prescribed in the
ADDRESSES section above, and must be
received on or before the date specified
in the DATES section.
I. Analysis of Agreement Containing
Consent Order To Aid Public Comment
The Federal Trade Commission
(‘‘Commission’’) has accepted, subject to
final approval, an Agreement
Containing Consent Orders (‘‘Consent
Agreement’’) from Penn National
Gaming, Inc. (‘‘PNG’’), which is
designed to remedy the likely
anticompetitive effects resulting from
Penn’s acquisition of Argosy Gaming
Company (‘‘Argosy’’). If the Commission
grants final approval, PNG will be
required to divest Argosy’s Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, casino and associated assets
to Columbia Sussex Corporation within
four (4) months after the Consent
Agreement becomes final. The Consent
Agreement also includes an Order to
Hold Separate and Maintain Assets
(‘‘Hold Separate Order’’) that requires
PNG to preserve Argosy’s Baton Rouge
casino and associated assets as a viable,
competitive, and ongoing operation
until the divestiture is achieved. The
Commission has issued the Hold
Separate Order.
The proposed Consent Agreement has
been placed on the public record for
thirty (30) days to solicit comments
from interested persons. Comments
received during this period will become
E:\FR\FM\09AUN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 152 (Tuesday, August 9, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 46175-46177]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-15684]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
[File No. 042-3196]
Advertising.com, Inc., and John Ferber; Analysis of Proposed
Consent Order To Aid Public Comment
AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.
ACTION: Proposed consent agreement.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this matter settles alleged
violations of Federal law prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or
practices or unfair methods of competition. The attached Analysis to
Aid Public Comment describes both the allegations in the draft
complaint and the terms of the consent order--embodied in the consent
agreement--that would settle these allegations.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before August 31, 2005.
ADDRESSES: Interested parties are invited to submit written comments.
Comments should refer to ``Advertising.com, Inc., et al., File No. 042
3196,'' to facilitate the organization of comments. A comment filed in
paper form should include this reference both in the text and on the
envelope, and should be mailed or delivered to the following address:
Federal Trade Commission/Office of the Secretary, Room 135-H, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580. Comments containing
confidential material must be filed in paper form,
[[Page 46176]]
must be clearly labeled ``Confidential,'' and must comply with
Commission Rule 4.9(c). 16 CFR 4.9(c) (2005).\1\ The FTC is requesting
that any comment filed in paper form be sent by courier or overnight
service, if possible, because U.S. postal mail in the Washington area
and at the Commission is subject to delay due to heightened security
precautions. Comments that do not contain any nonpublic information may
instead be filed in electronic form as part of or as an attachment to
e-mail messages directed to the following e-mail box:
consentagreement@ftc.gov.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The comment must be accompanied by an explicit request for
confidential treatment, including the factual and legal basis for
the request, and must identify the specific portions of the comment
to be withheld from the public record. The request will be granted
or denied by the Commission's General Counsel, consistent with
applicable law and the public interest. See Commission Rule 4.9(c),
16 CFR 4.9(c).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FTC Act and other laws the Commission administers permit the
collection of public comments to consider and use in this proceeding as
appropriate. All timely and responsive public comments, whether filed
in paper or electronic form, will be considered by the Commission, and
will be available to the public on the FTC Web site, to the extent
practicable, at https://www.ftc.gov. As a matter of discretion, the FTC
makes every effort to remove home contact information for individuals
from the public comments it receives before placing those comments on
the FTC Web site. More information, including routine uses permitted by
the Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC's privacy policy, at https://
www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Thomas B. Pahl (202) 326-2128 or
Michael Ostheimer (202) 326-2699, Bureau of Consumer Protection, 600
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20580.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to section 6(f) of the Federal
Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 721, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and section 2.34
of the Commission Rules of Practice, 16 CFR 2.34, notice is hereby
given that the above-captioned consent agreement containing a consent
order to cease and desist, having been filed with and accepted, subject
to final approval, by the Commission, has been placed on the public
record for a period of thirty (30) days. The following Analysis to Aid
Public Comment describes the terms of the consent agreement, and the
allegations in the complaint. An electronic copy of the full text of
the consent agreement package can be obtained from the FTC Home Page
(for August 3, 2005), on the World Wide Web, at https://www.ftc.gov/os/
2005/08/index.htm. A paper copy can be obtained from the FTC Public
Reference Room, Room 130-H, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington,
DC 20580, either in person or by calling (202) 326-2222.
Public comments are invited, and may be filed with the Commission
in either paper or electronic form. All comments should be filed as
prescribed in the ADDRESSES section above, and must be received on or
before the date specified in the DATES section.
Analysis of Agreement Containing Consent Order To Aid Public Comment
The Federal Trade Commission has accepted, subject to final
approval, an agreement containing a consent order from Advertising.com,
Inc. and John Ferber, individually and as an officer of Advertising.com
(together ``respondents'').
The proposed consent order has been placed on the public record for
thirty (30) days for receipt of comments by interested persons.
Comments received during this period will become part of the public
record. After thirty (30) days, the Commission will again review the
agreement and the comments received, and will decide whether it should
withdraw from the agreement or make final the agreement's proposed
order.
Respondents advertised and distributed computer software products,
including the SpyBlast computer software product, which was advertised
as an Internet security program. This matter concerns the allegation
that respondents failed to disclose adequately that SpyBlast included
adware that caused consumers to receive pop-up advertisements.
The Commission's complaint alleges that respondents disseminated
ads for SpyBlast that represented that because a consumer's computer
was broadcasting an Internet IP address, the computer was at risk from
hackers. According to the complaint, consumers who clicked on this
advertisement were shown an ActiveX ``security warning'' installation
box with a hyperlink describing SpyBlast as ``Personal Computer
Security and Protection Software from unauthorized users'' and telling
them ``once you agree to the License Terms and Privacy Policy--click
YES to continue.'' If a consumer clicked ``Yes,'' the software was
installed, even if the consumer had not clicked on the hyperlink. Only
if a consumer clicked on the hyperlink describing SpyBlast as
``Personal Computer Security and Protection Software from unauthorized
users'' before clicking ``YES,'' did SpyBlast's End User Licensing
Agreement (``EULA'') appear. The EULA contained a statement that
consumers agreed to receive marketing messages, including pop-up ads,
in exchange for getting SpyBlast.
The complaint further alleges that SpyBlast could also be
downloaded directly from the https://www.SpyBlast.com Web site. At the
very bottom of the www.SpyBlast.com home page, below several hyperlinks
to download SpyBlast, a small disclosure stating that ``In exchange for
usage of the SpyBlast software, user agrees to receive * * * offers on
behalf of SpyBlast's marketing partners'' appeared.
According to the Commission's complaint, respondents downloaded
bundled adware onto the computers of consumers who installed SpyBlast.
The adware collected information about SpyBlast users, including URLs
of visited pages and the user's IP address, and this information
allowed respondents to send users advertisements that they believed
might be of interest to them. Consumers received a substantial number
of pop-up advertisements as result of respondents' installation of this
adware onto their computers.
The complaint alleges that in representing that SpyBlast is an
Internet security program, respondents failed to disclose adequately
that SpyBlast included adware that caused consumers to receive pop-up
advertisements. The complaint further alleges that the presence of the
bundled adware would have been material to consumers in their decision
whether to install SpyBlast, and, therefore, that the failure to
disclose adequately this material fact was a deceptive practice. This
allegation regarding the disclosure of bundled adware applies general
Commission law on deception, as enunciated in the Federal Trade
Commission Policy Statement on Deception, appended to Cliffdale
Assocs., 103 F.T.C. 110, 174-83 (1984). The application of this law in
an online context was illustrated in a 2000 FTC Staff Guidance
Document, Dot Com Disclosures: Information about Online Advertising,
which is available at https://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/
dotcom/index.pdf.
The proposed consent order contains provisions designed to prevent
respondents from engaging in similar acts and practices in the future.
The proposed order is designed specifically to address the facts of the
case at hand. However, the limitation in the proposed order to
respondents' software programs whose principal function is to enhance
security or privacy should not be read
[[Page 46177]]
more broadly to suggest that the requirement for clear and prominent
disclosure is necessarily limited to those situations. Moreover, the
problem here was not the security software that Advertising.com
disseminated with its adware. Instead, it was the respondents' practice
of downloading software onto users' computers, without adequate notice
and consent, that generated repeated pop-up ads as the computer users
surfed the Web.
Part I of the proposed order prohibits respondents from making any
representation about the performance, benefits, efficacy, or features
of SpyBlast or any of respondents' other executable computer software
programs whose principal function is to enhance security or privacy,
unless respondents disclose clearly and conspicuously that consumers
who install the program will receive advertisements, if that is the
case.
Parts II through VI require respondents to keep copies of relevant
advertisements and materials substantiating claims made in the
advertisements; to provide copies of the order to certain of their
personnel; to notify the Commission of changes in corporate structure
(for the corporate respondents) and changes in employment (for the
individual respondent) that might affect compliance obligations under
the order; and to file compliance reports with the Commission. Part VII
provides that the order will terminate after twenty (20) years under
certain circumstances.
The purpose of this analysis is to facilitate public comment on the
proposed order, and it is not intended to constitute an official
interpretation of the agreement and proposed order or to modify in any
way their terms.
By direction of the Commission.
Donald S. Clark,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-15684 Filed 8-8-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P
