Christianity Today Writer In Trouble For Business Practices With Child Porn Ties

An online search of Smith confirms his relationship as chief technology officer  and one of the founders of Zango, a Washington state-based software company that  was known for installing intrusive adware that took over a computer’s browser  and bombarded the user with pop-up ads.

The Christian Post looked into Smith’s possible connection to pornography after  readers alerted the newspaper that one of the authors of a recent Christianity  Today article shared the same name as Zango founder Ken Smith. Commenters  provided links about a Ken Smith that had founded 180solutions Inc. (earlier  name ePIPO) around 2000, which later merged with Hotbar to form Zango Inc., a  company which for a period of time had affiliates that distributed links to  child porn.

The Christianity Today story by Olsen and Smith in the September issue has  produced a firestorm of criticism of the publication from global Christian  leaders.

Several readers of Christianity Today’s article reported that comments exposing  Smith’s background had been deleted on the website within minutes to an hour of  posting. A few commenters even re-posted on the CT article questioning why their  comments were deleted. Several readers sent complaints about these occurrences  to CP.

These users reported to CP that some of these comments included information  about Smith’s past involvement in Zango and 180solutions. Zango, the company  where Smith had served as founder and chief technology officer, was fined $3  million by the Federal Trade Commission for unfair and deceptive business  practices. Smith later stepped down from his post and his brother, who was the  CEO of Zango, later filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009. The company shut down  after a foreclosure of a bank consortium.

Other comments pointed to Smith’s 180solutions, which had affiliates that  distributed child pornography, according to documents obtained by The Christian  Post.

A chief compliance officer of 180solutions, Ken McGraw, confirmed that the  company’s “180search Assistant had been distributed in conjunction with child  pornography” in a September  2005 email sent to Alex Eckelberry, a writer of a technical news  website:

Alex,

I’m Ken McGraw, Chief Compliance Officer for 180solutions. Thank you for  letting us know about the instance you discovered where 180search Assistant had  been distributed in conjunction with child pornography. With your help, we have  been able to confirm this to be true and will be taking the following  actions:

* Based on pressure from us, Simpel Internet has ceased all distribution  operations until they can get better control of their affiliates.

* We will cooperate with law enforcement in any way we can to ensure that  justice is brought in this case.

* In the next couple of days, once we have the name and contact  information of the alleged child pornographer, we will file a civil lawsuit. All  proceeds from this suit will be donated to a charity or organization whose  mission is to protect children from online pornography or predation.

It goes without saying that child pornography is illegal and morally  reprehensible. Fortunately, this is the first time in our six years of  existence, to my knowledge, that we have been distributed with this type of  illegal content. We deplore it. Distributing our products with such illegal  content is specifically against our code of conduct and as such, we will  continue to do everything we can to prevent our products from being distributed  with it.

Sincerely,

Ken McGraw Chief Compliance Officer 180solutions, Inc.

Several months after McGraw’s email, Smith’s 180solutions merged with the  company Hotbar and formed Zango, where Smith’s official title was chief  technology officer. But the practices relating to pornography continued.

A month after the merger, Smith’s company made the news again, this time for  adult pornography being distributed to children, according to media reports. In  July 2006, The  Washington Post reported that Warner Bros. Studios was looking to end  its business relationship with Zango after the adware company was found to be  offering free games to kids on the Warner Bros. website in exchange for  permission to install a program that could advertise pornography.

Warner Bros. Studios, which is home to Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo and Harry  Potter, ran a web page called “Fun Stuff’ where the free games by Zango were  being offered, according to the Post, which notes the audience appeared to be  children.

The Washington Post reported users who clicked on the game were directed to a  page asking for permission to install on the computer a program whose terms of  agreement includes a disclosure that users may receive adult-oriented ads  through it.

In response to news that Warner Bros. was looking to sever ties with Zango, a  Zango spokesman characterized the promotion of its software on a child-oriented  site as a case of “ad inventory mix-up,” according to the Washington Post. He  added that it was not Zango’s job to “police the Warner Bros. site.”

Following the incident with Warner Bros., a public advocacy group filed a  complaint against Zango with the Federal Trade Commission for engaging in unfair  and deceptive business practices. As a result of the investigation by the FTC,  Zango was forced to pay a fine of $3 million.

Eckleberry covered news on Zango’s controversial practices for several years. In a February 2008  article, the tech writer claimed his research found that an overwhelming  majority of Zango’s business was derived from pornography ads.

“Zango has a real problem. By our own research, 80% of its business comes  from seekmo, the porn side of its business,” he wrote. Zango’s annual revenue  was estimated at $78 million. (The Christian Post was not able to independently  verify those figures.)

Smith left Zango around 2008, and when the company shut down in 2009, the  founder reflected about “What Zango Got Wrong,” in a post on his personal blog.  One of the reasons he offered on Zango’s troubles was: “Zango screwed up its  distribution.”

“Back in 2003-2005, we partnered with some people that we should never have  partnered with. We almost completely outsourced our distribution to them, and we  let them promote and install our software without adequate oversight or  supervision,” wrote Smith.

After reports alleging 180solutions’ link to child pornography and Zango’s  link to pornography, Smith made no specific references to those matters on his  blog. In 2007, Smith said his tech department of 90 people was doing “pretty  well.”

None of Smith’s personal blog posts mentioned child pornography or  pornography.  (read more)