Mogul Gold Winner Won His Gold With Spam

I was sitting watching the Olympics last night (my wife’s idea) and happened to overhear one of the announcers call Australian Dale Begg-Smith (winner of the mogul event) a millionaire. It struck me a bit odd that an Olympic athlete (with no professional salary or high-end endorsements) could be a millionaire so I googled him to find out how he made his millions.

Turns out he did it by tampering with users PCs.

According to the International Olympic Committee's website, Australia's gold medallist Dale Begg-Smith, runs an internet pop-up advertising company that he describes as the third largest of its type.
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Two main companies - called 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.
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Web searches reveal that AdsCPM Network has been a supplier of pop-under and -up advertising to websites.

Although they are a source of annoyance to web surfers, pop ads are used by many mainstream websites and are perfectly above board.
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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 "every few minutes", hijacks users' home- and search-page settings and can spy on users' web usage.

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.

I’m sure that Dale isn’t the only unsavory character at the Olympics, but would have hoped that the media would have at least drawn some attention to this unsavory character.