The FTC Just Banned Stalkerware Firm SpyFone and Its CEO

For years, civil liberties advocates have criticized so-called “stalkerware” corporations, an odious subset of the surveillance trade that sells merchandise particularly designed to invade individuals’s lives and spy on them. As multiple reports have proven, such merchandise are incessantly utilized by abusers and stalkers to commit gross privateness violations towards their victims.

In a transfer that appears to sign a crackdown on such firms, the Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to ban one such agency, together with its proprietor, from the surveillance trade. Support King, which was operated as “SpyFone,” and run by CEO Scott Zuckerman, will not have the ability to distribute advertising and marketing supplies or make future gross sales, according to a press release put out by the company. As a part of the settlement agreed upon, the corporate will even be pressured to delete information that was illegally harvested through its merchandise and to inform individuals that had been surveilled, the company mentioned.

For years, SpyFone has offered a variety of Android-based apps that enable customers to covertly surveil the telephones upon which they’re put in. According to the FTC, although SpyFone’s merchandise are marketed as a option to monitor the actions of kids and workers, they had been usually utilized by abusive people to focus on individuals for stalking and worse. After being put in on an individual’s gadget, the apps allowed for the whole monitoring of their actions, together with logging of cellphone calls, texts, web search historical past, and extra.

“The company’s apps sold real-time access to their secret surveillance, allowing stalkers and domestic abusers to stealthily track the potential targets of their violence,” the FTC mentioned in an announcement.

On prime of this, the corporate is accused of poorly securing the info that it collected on prospects. The firm apparently left terabytes of delicate consumer information exposed on the internet, permitting a foul actor to steal info on 2,200 customers in 2018, the FTC mentioned. The firm subsequently promised to enhance its safety however finally failed to take action, federal officers say. “SpyFone’s lack of basic security also exposed device owners to hackers, identity thieves, and other cyber threats,” the company wrote.

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In an announcement, FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra mentioned that the ban additionally didn’t preclude SpyFone or Zuckerberg from dealing with “potential criminal liability.” She added that she hoped different regulation enforcement companies would take it upon themselves to crack down on the “stalkerware” trade:

While this motion was worthwhile, I’m involved that the FTC will probably be unable to meaningfully crack down on the underworld of stalking apps utilizing our civil enforcement authorities. I hope that federal and state enforcers study the applicability of legal legal guidelines, together with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Wiretap Act, and different legal legal guidelines, to fight unlawful surveillance, together with the usage of stalkerware.

Samuel Levine, performing director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, had even harsher criticism to share concerning the firm.

“SpyFone is a brazen brand name for a surveillance business that helped stalkers steal private information,” he mentioned in a press release. “The stalkerware was hidden from device owners, but was fully exposed to hackers who exploited the company’s slipshod security. This case is an important reminder that surveillance-based businesses pose a significant threat to our safety and security. We will be aggressive about seeking surveillance bans when companies and their executives egregiously invade our privacy.”

We reached out to SpyFone for remark and can replace this story if we hear again.