Olympic Medalist was Spyware King

Remy writes "Seems that Australian gold medal mogulist Dale Begg-Smith is also a spyware entrepreneur. According to a report at Spam Kings, Begg-Smith has supported himself in style as president of a company responsible for generating 20,000,000 pop-ups per day, thanks to drive-by installs of spyware. I know the concept of Olympians being amateurs is outdated, but shouldn't they be barred from competition for this sort of thing?"

Re:Well...

[Audacious]

Also, on the subject of "amateurs", you can't be a "professional" in the sport you're competing in.

Ummmmmmm....I do not think so. Pro-Basketball stars compete in the Basketball tournaments as do Pro-Ice Skaters (Michelle Quan?) Which is a bit sad since the Pros have already made it and it is the newbies that made the Olympics great. I understand that, as professionals, the people who compete have a chance to actually make some money while they are still young - but it used to be the atheletes competed to get the recognition. Now it's more like they compete to show off their backers. Almost like horses at a race track where the jockies have various brand names on their jackets (and I even saw a brand name on the blanket under the saddle once). Too much commercialism.

<On a side tangent>In the Bible Jesus threw the merchants out of the church saying churches were a place of worship and not for the selling of wares. Should the Olympic committee take a hint from him and throw the merchants out of the Olympics because it is a place for amateurs and not professionals? (By this I mean the merchants are basically buying their way in to the Olympics whereas before no blatant displays were allowed and now they are allowed.)</side tangent>

After all, what's the difference between watching the Indy 500, the WWW, or even a boxing match at Ceasar's Palace and the Olympics? None - if they keep going the way they are going.

Going back to the original topic though, being Spyware King has nothing to do with being a "professional" athelete. Nor would having gained a traffic ticket (so long as said ticket doesn't land you in jail). It is not yet against the law to create Spyware although a lot of people (myself included) do not like or want Spyware. So until that is changed - whether or not this person creates Spyware has nothing to do with whether or not they should or could compete in the Olympics.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I don't think any Olympic committee has authority to enforce a morality unrelated to sporting itself.

Leaving aside your over-the-top comparison of spammers to nazis, I have to agree about the Olympics being unable to enforce a morality. And it's a good thing too. I haven't met a lot of Olympians - maybe 12 or so throughout my life.
With one exception*, I found them all to be contemptible. A more self-important, amoral, egotistical, smugly sure of their entitlement bunch you'll never meet.

* - Kristi Yamaguchi rocks.

Re:Olympic committee morality

[Petrushka]

That doesn't mean the Australian Olympic Committee can't ban him.

What gives? Everyone's standing up for the rights of the spammer? I'll happily admit there are even worse crimes in the world, but those have penalties too.

Let me remind folks that it was just this month that the Australian PM wanted to ban a New Zealand athlete from the Commonwealth Games because he had committed manslaughter, and had finished served his sentence nearly ten years ago. He's not a shining example, and manslaughter is more serious than spamming, sure. But where's the dividing line between crimes that are serious enough to warrant bans and crimes that aren'? What about robbery? embezzlement? white-collar crime? Now we're in grey areas. I'd say spammers are fairly high up the list of serious criminals who should be kicked out of an event which ostensibly (though not in actuality) is there to celebrate human dignity.

Re:Well...

[mumblestheclown]

Now, today in 2006, the US hockey team flew in the day before from all their NHL teams and then went on the ice the next day to play against Lativia. What is amazing in this 2006 game is that the "basically amateur" team from Lativia tied the NHL *super-stars*. Team Lativia went nuts after the game because they should have blown out. It made a big story because the professionals were almost beaten.

This is just ignorant. The US hockey team lost because:

• unlike the latvian team, they had just flown in and were jetlagged
• because of the way the current olympic hockey system is set up, the US is almost certain to advance to the knockout stages, so there's no need to kill yourself against latvia.
• the latvians DID have the advantage of training together much more than the US team

Ditto for Russians and Slovaks.