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'Spam Man' wins Olympic gold
Posted on February 16, 2006

Favorite Dale Begg-Smith, 21, has gone from Internet mogul to men's Olympic Winter Games moguls champion but his air of mystery will hang around like Wednesday's mist on the Italian Alps.

Begg-Smith has won the gold medal in the men's moguls at the Olympic Winter Games in Sauze D'Oulx, Italy.

Begg-Smith, born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and now living in Melbourne, led the moguls from qualifying through the final, where he performed a back flip with a cross at the top and finished with 26.77 points. Mikko Ronkainen of Finland (26.62) won the silver medal and Toby Dawson of the U.S. (26.30) won the bronze.

"I'm really happy to win a gold medal for Australia," Begg-Smith said.

"It was important to keep clean and consistent runs, and the bottom line landing was also important."

He's less than pleased to talk about his business.

Described as an Internet entrepreneur, Begg-Smith is also known as "Spam Man" and owner of AdsCPM Network (aka CPM Media), producer of spyware, malware, and adware. He also has ties to mass email campaigns and popunder ads.

When he was 13 Dale, and his older brother Jason, started an online marketing company because their parents told them if they wanted to travel the world pursuing their sport, they would have to fund it themselves.

In an interview with Australia's Age newspaper published on Feb. 14, Begg-Smith refused to give his company's name. The International Olympic Committee's Web site said that Begg-Smith runs an Internet pop-under advertising company that he describes as the third largest of its kind.

Begg-Smith, who drives a $300,000 Lamborghini, is the founder and president of AdsCPM Network and worth $40 million, according to estimates by the Herald Sun and other Australian newspapers. Begg-Smith said the figures being bandied about his business were untrue.

Typical of shady Internet businesses, CPM Media and AdsCPM don't include any detailed company information at their web sites. Their domain registrations generally list a post-office box (PO Box 8978) in Moscow, Idaho.

AdsCPM and CPM Media make money by skimming a small percentage each time an ad scores a hit or is directed to a client's site.

AdsCPM.com is currently offline, but an archived version of the site says the company served up 20 million pop-ups per day.

CPM Media is notorious for using "driveby downloads," security exploits, and other cheap tricks to install spyware (including keyloggers and browser hijackers) on unsuspecting Internet users' computers.

Begg-Smith refused to comment on whether AdsCPM, CPM-Media, freescratchandwin.com and secondthought.com were connected with his company.

Although they are a source of annoyance to Web surfers, pop ads are used by many mainstream websites and are perfectly above board.

But there is a dark side to the pop ad business.

Hidden programs that launch these ads are sometimes secreted - by third parties - in many website with "honeypot" offerings, such as pornography, free games, downloads and gambling.

Unsuspecting Web surfers visiting these sites can unwittingly become infected with so-called adware which spawns annoying advertisement and which can be used to secretly track a user's Web surfing habits.

Numerous computer security companies have warnings about AdsCPM and CPM Media which are held responsible for the Xzoomy.com search engine directory page and a site called FreeScratchandWin.com.

According to the Spyware Guide website, FreeScratchandWin.com opens pop ads, hijacks users' home- and search-page settings and can spy on users' Web usage.

Unsolicited commercial software (adware) installed by ActiveX drive-by download in affiliate pages which are redirected to by AdsCPM, the advertising network company who run FreeScratchAndWin, connects to its controlling servers and downloads and opens pop-up adverts every few minutes.

Another CPM website, 2nd-thought.com, initiates a so-called browser hijacker program that resets the user's home page and often redirect searches to porn sites.

Begg-Smith refused to discuss details of the company at his post-race news conference and said stories of his fortune were exaggerated.

"The company is nowhere near as big as people make it out to be. I've tapered it down over the last couple of years to concentrate on skiing," the World Cup leader told a news conference, before reluctantly explaining the business.

"It is complicated. It is technology for companies to monitor ad campaigns. I don't do anything that pops up. I just make software."

"There's not really a name (for the company) anymore," he said.

According to the Canadian Press news agency, Begg-Smith said "his business had never dealt with any specific kind of advertising, only the technology to track how often the ads were being seen. It was up to his customers to decide what kind of ads they wanted to use, he said."

Begg-Smith became irritated when more questions were asked about his business. According to Canadian press reports he said: "I don't know why we're talking about the company. I just won Olympic gold."

Begg-Smith reiterated that his business was set up to help fund his skiing career and that he was now concentrating on his sport.

The off-season is when Begg-Smith concentrates on business, and sometimes sacrifices training sessions for corporate meetings.

"All these guys are in the gym. I don't do any of that," Dale Begg-Smith said last year.
SOURCE: Herald Sun; Bloomberg; The Sydney Morning Herald