• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, March 7, 2007

Last year, FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz publicly called for action against the marketers that use adware companies to serve pop-ups to consumers -- at least when those companies get their adware on people's computers without their consent.

"A little shaming here might go a long way," he told the audience at a February 2006 conference organized by the Anti-Spyware Coalition and Center for Democracy and Technology.

Now, Leibowitz is renewing his plea. "We need to stop the demand side of spyware," he recently told the Washington Post. "We will send letters to major corporations and entities that place the majority of these ads. This is a wake-up call to put them on notice. That would be a good way to choke off the money."

Specifically, he told the Post the FTC will warn as many as 200 advertisers that they should pay attention to their online ad methods.

To date, the FTC, former New York State Attorney General (now governor) Eliot Spitzer, and a handful of others have brought actions against adware companies after their software has ended up on people's computers without their consent. But the companies -- including big brands -- that pay the adware firms to serve pop-ups have largely escaped attention.

One of the most notable exceptions was in New York, where Spitzer named a host of marketers -- including Priceline, Cingular, Monster.com, JPMorgan Chase, and United Airlines -- that allegedly used adware company Direct Revenue in a lawsuit against that company. Recently, Cingular, Travelocity and Priceline agreed to fines ranging from $30,000 to $35,000 for distributing ads via Direct Revenue.