Intermix founder and former CEO Brad Greenspan settled accounts with New York Attorney General (AG) Eliot Spitzer on Thursday. The fine came to $750,000 based on charges from Spitzer of distributing spyware and adware to millions of computer in New York and across the country.
While Greenspan didn’t plead guilty in the matter, Spitzer’s team of investigators believe Greenspan told his company to bundle adware with other benevolent software and to embed it deeply so as to be difficult to find.
Intermix, recently purchased by News Corp because of their popular MySpace site, settled the case previously, agreeing to pay $7.5 million in fines. The agreement spread the $7.5 million out over three years and Intermix had to agree to stop distributing adware. Greenspan claimed the adware problems came after he left the company.
The Associate Press quoted Greenspan’s statement, “My departure from Intermix in 2003 preceded the focus of the New York attorney general’s investigation on Intermix’ practices beginning in late 2004,” he said. “During my tenure at the company, the adware division was a small part of the business.”
There never-ending battle to stop spyware and adware continues on. The real problems will arise as major corporations like News Corp continue to scoop up smaller operations like Intermix, will the adware be slowed down or will the larger companies with more power and more money be able to send out a new wave of adware to run through one’s computer?
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
