WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 1999 -- The
Federal Trade Commission has asked a U.S. District Court Judge to halt a
Internet scam that clones everyday Web sites and uses the copycat sites
to barrage unsuspecting consumers with pornography.
According to the agency, the scammers copy
existing Web sites and insert coded instructions in the copycat sites
which automatically redirects unwitting consumers to adult sites
operated by the defendants. Then the scammers disable the browser's
"back" and "exit" commands so that Internet surfers
trying desperately to escape the pornographic images face screen after
screen of similar material and advertisements for other adult
sites.
The FTC obtained a preliminary injunction
from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Virginia and is seeking a court order to permanently purge this scam
from the Internet.
"These operators high-jacked Web
sites, 'kidnapped' consumers and held them captive," said Jodie
Bernstein, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
"They exposed surfers, including
children, to the seamiest sort of material and incapacitated their
computers so they couldn't escape. They copied as many as 25 million Web
pages from sites as diverse as the Harvard Law Review and the Japanese
Friendship Garden."
"When consumers used search engines to
find subjects as innocent as 'kids on the net,' 'news about Kosovo,' or
'wedding services,' they risked being exposed to a torrent of tawdry
images. This scam is outrageous and we want it off the Internet. We're
confident the court will help us arrange that," Bernstein said.
Bernstein explained the scheme at a press
conference in Washington, D.C. where she also announced the FTC's new
high-tech Internet Lab that will assist the agency's investigators as
they search for fraud and deception on the Web.
According to the complaint, in a practice
called "pagejacking," the defendants made exact copies of Web
pages posted by unrelated parties, including the imbedded text that
informs search engines about the subject matter of the site.
Then they made one change that was hidden
from view: they inserted a command to "redirect" any surfer
coming to the site to another Web site that contained sexually-explicit,
adult-oriented material. Internet surfers searching for subjects as
innocuous as "Oklahoma tornadoes" or "child car
seats" would type those terms into a search engine and the search
results would list a variety of related sites, including the bogus,
copycat site of the defendants.
Surfers assumed from the listings that the
defendants' sites contained the information they were seeking and
clicked on the listing. The "redirect" command imbedded in the
copycat site immediately rerouted the consumer to an adult site hosted
by the defendants. Once there, consumers were victimized by another
scam. The defendants "mouse trapped" consumers by
incapacitating their Internet browser's "back" and
"close" buttons, so that while they were trying to exit the
defendants' site, they were sent to additional adult sites in an
unavoidable, seemingly endless loop.
Bernstein speculated that the high rate of
traffic generated by the "kidnapped" surfers allowed the
defendants to charge premium prices for the banner ads displayed at
their site. In addition, the defendants may have received income from
diverting surfers to other adult oriented Web sites.
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