I admit I haven’t been on FaceBook for very long. When I finally took the plunge, it was somewhat grudgingly, dragging both my feet all the way.  When I went to FaceBook tonight, I was greeted with this little beauty at the top of my home page.

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News of yet another settlement between a government agency related to adware. This time it’s AdultFriendFinder and the FTC. Maybe I need to start tagging these as “chickens coming home to roost.”

AdultFriendFinder and the FTC have reached a settlement over consumers being “pelted” with sexually explicit ads. The short story is the FTC says AdultFriendFinder delivered sexually explicit ads to it’s network of sites to consumers who weren’t looking for such and that’s against the federal law. AFF can’t do that anymore, either themselves or by their affiiates. From the FTC press release:

“Such ads were displayed to consumers who were searching online using terms such as “flowers,” “travel,” and “vacations.” In some cases, defendant’s sexually explicit ads were distributed using spyware and adware.” (more…)

Larry Rulison. over at the TimesUnion.com, has more to report this morning in the continuing indictment of two top WurldMedia executive. It seems to Gregory Kerber, former CEO of Wurld Media, is still employeed by the ROO Group, the publicly traded company who purchased Wurld Media this summer for $4.3 million. Kerber was hired by ROO after the purchase of Wurld Media as a senior vice-president of business development.

I wonder if Kerber had anything to do with all those pop-ups of Roo.com I was getting through adware? Adware inventory buys can be a pretty quick and cheap way to get a site’s traffic figures up when setting those good ole Rate Card prices for advertising on the site. Anyway, back to the Friday fun provided by Larry….

It seems a reporter from TimesUnion went to the offices of Roo, as a good reporter should, and those offices were located in a “nondescript building” with a locked front door. They did have a couch and Christmas tree in the front lobby behind that locked door though. Eh….Merry Christmas.  

Evidently, the Saratoga District Attorney’s office is still being a bit tight lipped on the specifics of charges brought against Kerber and Saxton. According to Times Untion, Assistand Distric Attorney of Saratoga did say

“The grand larceny and money laundering charges center on “certain financial transactions that occurred” related to the distribution of the proceeds from the sale to ROO earlier this year, Wendling said……Wendling would not say where authorities believe the proceeds ended up, although he said it was another entity separate from Wurld.”

My curiosity is piqued. I wonder if it ended up in the Lexy Foundation? No, that’s not news only me being tongue in cheek because it’s Friday. But those who were in affiliate marketing back in the early days of WurldMedia, Morpheus and Buyersport should remember about the Lexy Foundation. Just in case something changes on the site in the future:

Formed by the founders of Wurld Media….to assist the sick, disabled, downhearted, and poor. It was also used to justify the Buyersport software claiming the traffic of other affiliate’s as their own. Even when the software was just getting installed by users of Morpheus who were really just interested is being able to download free music, movies, software, etc. That downhearted part always did make me laugh. All those halos in the logo and with mouse-over of the menu seem pretty funny right now as well.

I do hope that during all this investigating going on that some official probing has happened or will happen into the Lexy Foundation as well. All considered, just to be sure that everything is on the up and up with the nonprofit.

I’ll continue to be watching as all of this progresses and more specific information regarding the charges become public record.

Yet another adware company is facing legal woes. It looks like the stuff has hit the fan for Wurld Media. The CEO, Gregory Kerber, and the CFO, Richard Saxton, were arraigned on Friday on a number of felony and misdemeanor charges. The charges include second-degree grand larceny, third-degree grand larceny, fourth-degree money laundering, first-degree falisifying business records, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, failure to pay benefits, second degree criminal contempt and failure to withhold income taxes. This follows a seven month investigation by Spa City police and State tax agency. The two face a possible 50 years in jail. (more…)