http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18341454-421,00.htmlBegg-Smith dogged by pop-ups
By Robert Lusetich in Vancouver
March 04, 2006
IT was as a precocious 12-year-old that Dale Begg-Smith came to realise the money-making promise of the fledgling internet.
The talented kid was often photographed performing jaw-dropping moves on the slopes at Canada's Whistler ski resort, where the Begg-Smith clan moved from their Swiss Family Robinson existence on a remote island so Dale and older brother Jason could chase their dream of Olympic gold.
The perk from these photographic sessions was free ski gear.
Where others would have kept the gear, the prodigy taught himself to build a website, launched thinairsports.com and began flogging the skis, stocks, jackets and pants over the internet. "He was a smart, entrepreneurial kid who realised he could make money off the internet even back then," says Andrew Forin, 23, one of Begg-Smith's closest friends. "He had no training, no experience, but here's what you've got to understand about Dale: he's the most amazing individual in this world, as far as I'm concerned. I know people say things like that and you go, 'yeah, whatever', but he was my best friend growing up and I'm telling you, there's no one like this kid."
He's right. But at a time when Australia's latest Olympic champion should be basking in gold medal glory, he is instead besieged by accusations he made his fortune through despised, and possibly illegal, internet programs and only took out Australian citizenship for political expediency.
Last month, the Canadian-born, Lamborghini-driving millionaire won the moguls gold at the Turin Winter Olympics for his adopted country of Australia. It was the nation's third ever winter gold and Begg-Smith was, appropriately, chosen to carry the Australian flag for the closing ceremony last weekend. But rather than focusing on his achievement, as the secretive Begg-Smith would have us, critics have homed in on the controversial source of his wealth.
His companies allegedly clog the internet with "spyware", a type of program that can redirect a computer to porn sites or install software that floods the computer with pop-up ads. At worse, spyware can steal confidential information such as usernames and passwords.
Begg-Smith's now defunct Adscpm.com website boasted that it generated 20 million pop-ups a day.
Begg-Smith's minders insist he's involved in "legitimate" businesses, which the skiier won't discuss publicly, but allegations about his activities have now been sent to crime-busting New York attorney-general Eliot Spitzer.
Spitzer has already won a massive spyware settlement against a Los Angeles-based firm called Intermix, which he accused of tricking millions of people into installing hidden programs on their computers. Begg-Smith could be next in his sights.
Forin, who is writing a book about his friend, says that like everything Begg-Smith puts his mind to, he quickly grasped the lay of the land of the online world. "It didn't take him long to learn that when you own an online store you have to market it because nobody knows about it if you don't," he says.
"It was all about exposure. He realised online advertising was the next step and he became very good at advertising online. He became so good at it he started offering his services (to other companies) when he was only 13 or 14 and started consulting."
By the time he was 15, his brother Jason, who is five years older, had joined the business and the money was rolling in.
Soon Begg-Smith, who barely attended high school, the boys received their education at home, had decisions to make. The Canadian Olympic bureaucracy makes heavy demands on the lives of its young skiers, demands an autonomous and impatient young man had no intention of following.
"I was making so much money ... I had to make a choice," he told the Vancouver Sun newspaper last year. "The choice at that time was business."
It would be a fateful decision and one that would land him in Australia, a move his one-time coach, Brett Wood, says was "political convenience" as Begg-Smith needed a country to represent to get to the World Cup and, eventually, the Olympics.
And as Begg-Smith himself has noted, Australian officials turned a blind eye to his extracurricular activities and allowed him the time to pursue them. "For the Australians, the No1 thing is results," he said. "Results speak higher than anything else."
It was a decision that also guaranteed him a significant cash flow, not the $40 million reported but potentially in the millions according to those who follow the workings of internet marketing, as well as a $360,000 Lamborghini and waterfront condo on Vancouver's exclusive Coal Harbour.
But it was also a path that now threatens to haunt the most evasive and mysterious of Olympic champions.
Steve Shubitz, a self-proclaimed geek who lives in San Diego, reckons Australia's newest gold medallist is, at best, unethical. Shubitz vehemently defends a person's right to surf the net without the threat of their computer being unwittingly hijacked. He and other "netizens" have spent the days since Begg-Smith's Turin triumph doing extensive detective work about the origins of his fortune.
The results, which contain damning allegations involving the grubby business of spyware, were sent to Spitzer after Begg-Smith indicated his company, which he's never named, had offices and staff in New York.
Shubitz tells The Weekend Australian he is sure "Begg-Smith and his brother made their money from distributing spyware to potentially millions of computer users because this sleazy world is extremely profitable if you have no ethics".
Spyware, or adware, is one of the biggest malaises on the net, so much so that the US Federal Trade Commission is considering forcing big-name advertisers to stop paying companies based on the number of hits they can generate on websites because it provides enormous financial motivation for spyware makers.
Begg-Smith has dodged questions about his online activities. But evidence, including a news release issued in 2002, reveals he was president of CPM Media and adsCPM, two companies which a host of internet security firms, including Symantec and Computer Associates, claim are purveyors of spyware.
One of these scams, called freescratchandwin.com, promised prizes but instead changed a computer's home and search pages, downloaded an array of pop-up ads and tracked a user's browsing habits. The registered owner of freescratchandwin is Jason Begg-Smith, who also represented Australia at Turin.
Several other domains linked to CPM Media and adsCPM, including adultexpressview and xzoomy, another notorious spyware site, were hosted by the same server.
"One of (the domains) even infects your computer and then has a pop-up advertising software to kill pop-ups," says Shubitz, "Which is like me breaking into your house and then selling you a burglar alarm."
Ben Edelman, an internet crusader at Harvard University, says of the Begg-Smith brothers: "It looks like they started with an advertising network and then graduated to distributing other people's spyware and then, the most objectionable thing is they started making their own spyware with programs."
None of the sites associated with Begg-Smith are currently operating. Begg-Smith's agent, David Melina, confirmed that his client was involved "as a consultant in the business" but would not name the company or discuss CPM Media or adsCPM.
"Dale's focused on skiing, his brother's more involved with the business than he is," Melina says. "Basically, Dale has very little involvement in the business now and prefers not to comment on it.
"He has been involved in a legitimate business and I don't know that spyware's an accurate description of that business.
"He's done nothing illegal. I think the public just wants to focus on his achievements. We'd like to think he's someone we just should be proud of."
Shubitz shakes his head at the idea. "I just wish he'd come out and admit what he did was wrong and apologise," he says. "Why do you think he doesn't want to go into detail about how he made all that money? Because he doesn't want to unlock the Pandora's Box. Well, guess what, it's opened anyway."
I absolutely detest pop ups, like the rest of the population. 
Logged
