REDMOND, Wash. — May 19, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. has filed two lawsuits this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington detailing evidence of an emerging form of click fraud in online advertising the company has dubbed “click laundering.” One lawsuit is a John Doe suit alleging that unidentified defendants engaged in this activity; the other lawsuit names Web publisher RedOrbit Inc. and its president, Eric Ralls, as defendants. Click laundering, a previously unknown form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising fraud, was uncovered by Microsoft investigators following dramatic and irregular growth in click traffic on two sites within its Microsoft adCenter network. Investigators believe that had the click laundering scheme gone undetected, the perpetrators could have defrauded advertisers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Online ad fraud is evolving in sophistication all the time. Fighting it demands vigilance and dedication to an honest and secure online marketplace. We believe that a trusted marketplace is critical to Internet commerce, and Microsoft will continue to take aggressive action working with industry and law enforcement to protect our platforms, customers and advertisers,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel for Microsoft.

PPC fraud, also known as click fraud, is a type of Internet fraud in online advertising that occurs when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate website visitor by clicking on an ad to generate a charge-per-click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link. Microsoft adCenter monitors click traffic carefully to prevent advertisers from being charged for non-valid clicks, and Microsoft has been active in investigating and taking action against click fraud when found, including taking legal action where necessary.

Click laundering is a newly uncovered form of click fraud in which technical measures are used to make invalid ad clicks appear to originate from legitimate sources. It is analogous to money laundering in which the origin of illegal profits is disguised as legitimate. Click laundering attempts to avoid fraud detection systems that have been put in place by the ad platform — in this case, Microsoft adCenter — to protect online advertisers. Through various means, including malware programs, fraudsters are able to trick innocent Internet users into visiting websites where they unknowingly click on advertisements. Click launderers also can further disguise the origin of those invalid clicks by using scripts and other methods to alter information that is sent to the ad platform.

Microsoft is filing these lawsuits to help protect its ad platform and promote the integrity of online advertising for the benefit of all legitimate advertisers, to stop the fraudulent behavior, and to recover the damages caused by the click laundering. These actions are part of an ongoing effort by Microsoft Advertising and the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit to work with others across the industry to identify and address emerging threats to the integrity of the online advertising ecosystem through technical and legal means. This week, Microsoft closed another lawsuit the company filed in 2009 regarding click fraud in auto insurance verticals and World of Warcraft, following a successful settlement with defendant Eric Lam. Terms of the settlement are confidential, but the lawsuit successfully brought the click fraud activities described in the complaint to an end and helped Microsoft further refine and evolve its approach to combating click fraud. Such cases demonstrate the evolving nature of fraud in online advertising and the need for ongoing investments across the industry to maintain a healthy Internet marketplace.

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3FN Service Specialized in Hosting Spam-Spewing Botnets, Phishing Websites, Child Pornography, and Other Illegal, Malicious Web Content

At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a district court judge has permanently shut down a rogue Internet Service Provider that recruited, hosted, and actively participated in the distribution of spam, spyware, child pornography, and other malicious and illegal content. The ISP’s computer servers and other assets have been seized and will be sold by a court-appointed receiver, and the operation has been ordered to turn over $1.08 million in ill-gotten gains to the FTC.

In June 2009, the FTC charged that 3FN, which does business under a variety of names, actively recruited and colluded with criminals to distribute harmful electronic content including spyware, viruses, trojan horses, phishing schemes, botnet command-and-control servers, and pornography featuring children, violence, bestiality, and incest. The FTC alleged that the defendant advertised its services in the darkest corners of the Internet, including a chat room for spammers.

The FTC complaint alleged that 3FN actively shielded its criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the online security community, or shifting its criminal elements to other Internet protocol addresses it controlled to evade detection.

The FTC also alleged that 3FN deployed and operated botnets – large networks of computers that have been compromised and enslaved by the originator of the botnet, known as a “bot herder.” Botnets can be used for a variety of illicit purposes, including sending spam and launching denial-of- service attacks. According to the FTC, the defendant recruited bot herders and hosted the command-and-control servers – the computers that relay commands from the bot herders to the compromised computers known as “zombie drones.”

Transcripts of instant-message logs filed with the district court show the defendants’ senior employees discussing the configuration of botnets with bot herders. And, in filings with the district court, the FTC alleged that more than 4,500 malicious software programs were controlled by command-and-control servers hosted by 3FN. This malware included programs capable of keystroke logging, password stealing, and data theft, programs with hidden backdoor remote control activity, and programs involved in spam distribution.

The FTC charged that 3FN’s distribution of illegal, malicious, and harmful content and deployment of botnets that compromised thousands of computers, harmed consumers and was an unfair practice, in violation of federal law.

On June 15, 2009 the court issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit 3FN’s illegal activities and require its upstream Internet providers and data centers to stop providing services to 3FN.

The court has now ordered a permanent bar on the illegal activities of 3FN and its agents and has appointed a receiver and instructed him to liquidate the operation’s assets.

The defendants named in the FTC’s complaint are Pricewert LLC, also doing business as 3FN.net, Triple Fiber Network, APS Telecom, APX Telecom, APS Communications, and APS Communication.

This case was brought with the invaluable assistance of NASA’s Office of Inspector General, Computer Crime Division; Gary Warner, Director of Research in Computer Forensics, University of Alabama at Birmingham; The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; The Shadowserver Foundation; Symantec Corporation; and The Spamhaus Project.

The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTC’s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357). The FTC enters complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 1,800 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad. The FTC’s Web site provides free information on a variety of consumer topics.

Set to end the frustrations of all Windows 7 users who work with more than one monitor, Actual Tools has just launched a new version of Actual Multiple Monitors. It is the first multi-monitor management utility that provides the most complete emulation of Windows Taskbar on secondary displays.

The Taskbar is an integral part of the Windows user interface and has been significantly redesigned in Windows 7 with such handy features as Pin and Peek. But owners of multi-monitor Windows setups discovered rather quickly there were no proper tools to efficiently manage tasks on secondary monitors. Even the newest Windows 7 still does not provide a Taskbar for this scenario.

No Taskbar means it is necessary to drag the mouse to the primary display and back each time certain programs need to be activated via the Taskbar button. This is also the case when a new application is launched via the Start menu or a particular icon is accessed in the notification area. This “mouse shuttle” effect quickly annoys and distracts, greatly increasing the workload and mouse clicks which may lead to repetitive strain injury.

Actual Multiple Monitors 2.1 by Actual Tools is the first product on the market to offer equivalent implementation of the Windows 7 Taskbar on secondary monitors. When launched, the program adds a full copy of the main Taskbar onto each secondary display. Each Taskbar copy has a Start button, copy of the notification area, and shows live previews over the Taskbar buttons (with support for the Aero Peek feature). It provides the unique ability to pin buttons, which is the case with the main Windows 7 Taskbar.

“Efficient task management in a multi-monitor environment is impossible without habitual instruments,” said Michael Tretyakov, CEO of Actual Tools, “and our primary goal is to provide all multi-monitor Windows users with a task management tool fully identical to the main taskbar.”

In addition to the outstanding multi-monitor Taskbar, Actual Multiple Monitors has many other features to manage multi-monitor desktop in an efficient manner. An Alt-Tab Task Switcher is cloned on all monitors. There is a quick toggling of secondary displays on/off. The primary display can be assigned via the context menu of the notification area icon. A special button in each window’s title bar allows instant transfer of any window onto the required monitor.

Actual Multiple Monitors provides the ability to maximize any window to the entire desktop or implement horizontal/vertical maximization to its current monitor. It’s possible to store various desktop configurations as named profiles and switch between them in a single click. Furthermore, the current order and layout of desktop icons can be stored and fully restored.

All these features combined in a single product make Actual Multiple Monitors a must-have program for each and every owner of dual-, triple- or other multi-monitor setup. The streamlined product answers all the prayers of those running Windows 7.

Pricing and Availability

Actual Multiple Monitors runs on all Windows platforms since Windows 2000 (including 64-bit editions) and costs $29.95 (USD) for a single-user license. Discounts for volume buyers are available here https://www.actualtools.com/multiplemonitors/order/#volume_discounts . Additional information on Actual Multiple Monitors, a collection of tutorial articles and success stories, as well as a 30-day evaluation copy is available from https://www.actualtools.com/ .

About Actual Tools

Founded in 2001, Actual Tools is a software development company specializing in desktop enhancement applications. The innovative solutions provided by Actual Tools are created to meet the needs of the users and to make work with a computer fast, pleasant and convenient. For more information please visit https://www.actualtools.com/