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Carlos Pereira

100. FTC v. Carlos Pereira d/b/a atariz.com, Civil Action No. 99-1367-A (E.D. Va. filed Sept. 14, 1999)

Defendants: Carlos Pereira, WTFRC, Pty Ltd., Guiseppe Nirta, Gregory Lasarado

Type: Page Jacking & Mouse Trapping

Defendants allegedly engaged in "pagejacking" and "mouse trapping" to drive unsuspecting consumers to adult sites and hold them there. According to the FTC, defendants first captured and made counterfeit copies of over 25 million Web pages. They then inserted a "redirect" command in these counterfeit pages and placed them under defendants’ Web site, usually at www.atariz.com. When consumers used a search engine to look up information on the Internet, they sometimes pulled up listings for defendants’ counterfeit sites. Though these listings described pages devoted to recipes, kids games, automobiles or other everyday topics, if a consumer clicked on the listing for a counterfeit site, he was taken immediately to sexually explicit adult Web sites operated by defendants. Once there, a consumer could not easily leave because defendants disabled a consumer’s normal browser functions. If he tried to escape by hitting the "back" or "close it" buttons on his browser, the consumer would just receive more pages of graphic sexual content.

On September 14, 1999, the Commission filed suit and alleged that defendants had violated Section 5 of the FTC Act. The FTC alleged that defendants had deceived consumers by pagejacking Web sites and misleading consumers about where they were going. The FTC also alleged that defendants had engaged in illegal and unfair practices when the mouse trapped consumers and preventing them from leaving defendants’ sites. The Court granted the FTC’s motion for an ex parte Temporary Restraining Order with a provision to suspend several of defendants’ domain name registrations. On September 21, 1999, the Court issued a Preliminary Injunction and continued these suspensions.

The FTC cooperated closely with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in this case. The ACCC executed search warrants on the business premises of the Australian defendants and looked into possible criminal or civil actions in that country.

The FTC amended its complaint and added Gregory Lasarado on February 9, 2000.

On February 28, 2000, the Court entered default judgments and permanent injunctions against WTFRC and Nirta, barring further "pagejacking" or "mouse trapping" and permanently suspending the domain names they had used to perpetuate their scheme.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/1999/9909/atariz.htm (press release - complaint / TRO)

This page was last modified on July 22, 2007.

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