The FTC said it got a court order to shut down a ‘rogue’ ISP that...

Telecom, advertised its services in “the darkest corners of the Internet,” including a forum set up for communications among criminals, the FTC said. The ISP either ignored warnings from Internet security companies or shifted “criminal elements” to other IP addresses it controls “to evade detection,” the agency said. Pricewert also recruited so-called bot herders and hosted “command and control servers,” as evidenced from instant-messaging logs filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., the FTC said. The court has frozen Pricewert’s assets and required its “upstream” providers and data centers to cut it off, with a preliminary injunction hearing scheduled for June 15. The FTC also said Sears had settled FTC claims that it didn’t properly disclose the scope of information that would be collected by tracking software in a desktop application, the subject of a separate class-action lawsuit (WID Jan 9/08 p6). The FTC said in an administrative complaint that Sears offered users $10 to participate in “My SHC Community,” which was advertised as collecting “online browsing” information. In a “lengthy user license agreement” Sears disclosed the full extent of the tracking, though, which the FTC labeled deceptive. Secure sessions on third-party sites were also tracked, revealing the contents of shopping carts, bank statements, prescription drug records and header information in e-mail, as well as offline computer activity, the agency said. Sears agreed to destroy collected information and promised to “clearly and prominently” disclose what it’s tracking in future software before installation and separate from user license agreements.