Y No Longer Frozen
Shortly after I tried to sign up for a free screensaver with Freeze.com, I started to get a lot of Spam. I didn't even get the free screensaver because it never uploaded. Below you can see what I did to stop it, contact info for those responsible, and the names of the surprisingly respectable companies that colluded with Freeze.com.in case you should need it, first and foremost, I want to give the mailing address for Freeze.com's CEO's:
Robert Weber
CEO
Freeze.com, LLC
868 Third Street South
Waite Park, MN 56387
(address from Freeze.com's website, name of CEO from business magazines)
The company is also run by his twin brother,
Ryan J. Weber, Founder, Freeze.com, same address
Phone number: (320) 203-7157 ext. 305
(number taken from a company press release)
They are twenty-five years old as of April.
According to the Better Business Bureau of Dakota and Northern Minnesota, Freeze.com has an unsatisfactory record:
Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to two or more unresolved complaints.
Stopping freeze.com spam
One of the most effective things you can do to stop spam from Freeze.com is to block their domain names and use email filters to stop emails from their accomplices, like Devry University and University of Phoenix. You can find some of their domain names below. Here are just some of the aliases under which Freeze.com has sent me spam:
Thescreensaverplace.com
clockmail.com
screensavertown.com
bigdesktops.com
desktopindustry.com
desktoppuzzles.com
globalscreens.com
thescreensaverplace.com
optionalhelp.com
lookitsmail.com
ijotmail.com
There are some new ads on Yahoo by "screenscenes.com" that appear to be them.
Go ahead an look up their registration at Whois or GoDaddy. This is not a complete list. Freeze.com often uses their P.O. Box in St. Cloud Minnesota when registering their domain names.
Freeze.com also sends out spam from another corporate face:
Game Point Inc.
P.O. Box 1142
St. Cloud, MN 56302
Robert Weber is the head of this company too.
(Taken from Whois)
Hundreds of Spams that I received about the "University of Phoenix" and "Devry University" were from Freeze-owned domains.
Report freeze.com to the minnesota attorney general
Let the Attorney General of Freeze.com's home state know what they are doing. Minnesota Attorney General
I am providing a link to the Minnesota Attorney General's Complaint form too. To make sure they take these type of complaints and find out what they do with them, contact them first. Minnesota Attorney General Complaint Form
Sending out spam is against these rules
Sending out spam is against the rules of most internet providers, website providers, and email providers. Freeze.com's internet provider appears to be Time Warner Telecom, according to Whois, as of January.
Involvement by yahoo and google
Yahoo and Google sold a lot of ads to Freeze.com. Lately I've noticed what looks like a Freeze.com company advertising "Screen Scenes" on Yahoo. Don't do business with them unless you check their ownership and somehow find it is another company (which is unlikely). It's telling that Freeze.com has to change its name so often.
In searching the internet for information on Freeze.com's domain names, not infrequently, they appeared on lists of spammers. Why did people who keep these lists know this, but Yahoo and Google somehow didn't?
Did Yahoo and Google enable a major spammer in exchange for ad revenues? Shouldn't these companies have to do some preliminary checking of their advertisers before they encourage consumers to do business with them?
As of April 12 Freeze.com and Apollo group, the parent company of University of Phoenix, were listed as a top advertisers by MediaLife magazine. Scroll down to see the lists of top advertisers.
Click here
Yahoo ignored my communications to them about this when I contacted them as an individual consumer. If you are currently having problems with Freeze.com in which Yahoo plays a part, this is the mailing address of the CEO of Yahoo, taken from Yahoo Financial:
Mr. Terry Semmel
CEO
Yahoo! Inc
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Corporate Headquarters Fax: (408) 349-3301
If you'd like to contact Google to ask them about this, here is their CEO's contact info taken from Yahoo Financial:
Eric Schmidt
CEO
Google Inc
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Corporate Headquarters Fax: (650) 618-1499
My personal tale of frozen woe
This is how it began for me. Some time ago I saw an offer for a "free" screen saver offered by Freeze.com in an online ad. It looked like a really nice underwater screensaver. It turned out that the process to get this "free" screen saver was to answer an interminable series of questions, and I dropped out before I was through (by design, I think). Before I tried to abort this lengthy process, I'd given them my e-mail address. Luckily, instead of my real name, I made up one.
Shortly after that I began getting three spams a day addressed to the made up name, which I'd never used before. Freeze.com used a variety of domain names and e-mail addresses to fool my attempts to block them, but there were similarities. You could tell it was them.in fact, when I checked the domain names were all registered to Freeze.com's P.O. Box in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Besides screensavers and related products, two persistent Freeze.com enabled spammers are the "University of Phoenix" and "Devry University." Spam from these "Universities" came from Freeze.com domains.
I tried numerous times to get Freeze.com to stop sending me these spams. They wouldn't. I let Yahoo know about this. No response. I reported all the addresses as spam to Yahoo, which should have triggered them to stop e-mails to me from these addresses. It didn't.
Instead, large ads from Freeze.com continued to adorn my Yahoo e-mail screen, my Yahoo screen, and also Google.in a press release Freeze.com said it was also doing business with AOL.
If you want to confirm any of this, create a new e-mail address. A free service like Yahoo would be best. Go to freeze.com and try to obtain a free screensaver. Give them a unique fake name. You will shortly begin receiving spam addressed to this fake name. Repeat as often as you like. You will soon be the proud recipient of a ton of spam. Watch out though, they might install spyware on your computer.
Contact info for "devry university" and "university of phoenix"
Here is contact information that I've assembled for the two "Universities" who've sent out millions of spams in conjunction with Freeze.com. I'd love to know how they defend this. I personally received many Spams from them long after I requested that this stop. I can attest to the fact that these were totally unwanted e-mails.
Devry University Executives:
Dennis Keller, Chairman
Ronald Taylor, Chief Exec. Officer, Director
Daniel Hamburger, Pres, Chief Operating Officer
Norman Levine, Chief Financial Officer, Sr. VP
O. John Skubiak, Exec. VP; Pres
Devry University
DeVry Inc
One Tower Lane, Suite 1000
Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181
Corporate Headquarters Phone: (630) 571-7700 Fax: (630) 571-0317
Here's a contact for a Devry University Media Relations person taken from a their press release catalogued at Reuters.com
Jonelle Niffenegger Media Relations (630) 706-3212
"DeVry University" is a for profit corporation that, among other things, operates medical schools in the Caribbean, and whose Chairman earns four million dollars a year, according to their profile at Yahoo Financial.
Report "devry university" to the attorney general of illinois where they are headquartered
Illinois Attorney General
The other major Freeze.com spamming accomplice is of course, "University of Phoenix." "University of Phoenix" is a very interesting "University" where the CEO earns over twelve million dollars a year, according to their corporate profile at Yahoo Financial.
Todd Nelson
Chairman, Pres, Chief Exec. Officer
University of Phoenix
Apollo Group Inc
4615 East Elwood Street
Phoenix, AZ 85040
Corporate Headquarters Phone: (480) 966-5394 Fax: (480) 379-3503
Press Contact info taken from recent University of Phoenix press release at Reuters.com
Ayla Dickey 480 557-2952 ayladickey@apollogrp. Edu
Another possible press contact from a press release on the University of Phoenix site dated July:
Angela D'Amario 404 266-2600 ext 210 [email protected]
Unless otherwise stated, contact info and corporate information is from Yahoo Financial.
Report spamming by univerity of phoenix to the attorney general of arizona
Attorney General of Arizona
What kind of "university" sends out millions of spams?
See discussion of the reputations of online Universities like Devry and University of Phoenix at a forum about professional education. Skim down until you see the relevant entry.
Certcities.com click here
Mixed review for University of Phoenix by graduating student at:
RateItAll.com click here
Website owners, do not accept ads from freeze.com
Watch out, Freeze.com promotes its ads as a source of cash to website owners. They market themselves appealingly as "Cold Cash." Their ad copy makes their services look entirely positive, with free screen savers for your visitors, and cash for you. Don't buy it. They bring spyware and spam to your website's visitors. Don't do business with Freeze.com.
I've seen Freeze.com's press releases. You would never know what they really do from reading their press releases and their coverage in the sycophantic business press. It's really pretty shocking how the business press has failed to look into this. I was just further amazed to learn that these major spammers have won awards from organizations like the Small Business Administration. The Small Business Administration gave an award to one of the largest spammers in America.
On the web I found people also having problems with Freeze.com's cell phones and with spy ware and trojan horses clandestinely installed by their "free" products.
Documentation of freeze.com spyware
Montana Associated Technologies Roundtables
"What's That Sneaking Into Your Computer?"
April 27
Scroll down to see:
... Most people targeted by spyware consent to their own victimization, however unwittingly, by downloading other software from the Web. WhenU's spyware program, for instance, comes with... Screen savers and other doodads, like clip art and computer wallpaper, from Freeze.com [emphasis added]... Once it's in place, WhenU's software traces the computer user's searches, not only at general search sites, but also in search boxes on retail and other sites... Click here
Spyware Warrior A site for busting spyware, lists Freeze.com as a rogue company. Scroll down to see this entry:
Company is known adware distributor (1); questionable license terms, demands personal info, provides outdated trial version of Webroot Spy Sweeper click
Download.com Consumer reviews of Freeze.com's 3D Butterfly screensaver say it is full of spyware, and that it is slowing down their computers. Click here
KarlsForums.com A consumer on a computer forum asks for help with viruses that seem to have something to do with Freeze.com click here
Marthas-web.com This user found spyware embedded in Freeze.com's free screensaver and she documents this in her website with screenshots. Busted! Click here
Usacomplaints. Coms.com See a complaint from a consumer who lost all data on her computer due to a parasite from Freeze.com, which also installed a gambling game. Click here
Annoyances.org An inquiry from a consumer plagued with persistent pop ups from another Freeze.com domain (Free Haunted House)
click here
Other consumer complaints about freeze.com's screensavers
And sometimes they don't even get the free screen saver:
Usacomplaints.com
Complaint 1
Complaint 2
Documentation of freeze.com spamming
For whatever reason, some webmasters and computer professionals publicly list addresses and domains that they block for sending spam. A number of them block Freeze.com domains.
Rhyolite.com bans mail from freeze.com as spam
Click here
Idunno.org Another organization has freeze.com on its spam list:
click here
Another Freeze.com domain ends up on a University's public list of Spammers. Look for Gamepoint Inc. Click here
Other documentation of Freeze.com spamming:
Wall Street Journal Forum
University of Phoenix mentioned in discussion of Spammers in a Wall Street Journal forum.
The thing that is galling about the spam issue is that seemingly legitimate outfits like Columbia House, the University of Phoenix and NetFlix resort to this tactic. It would be good if some of these spammers were sued.
This site's indexing is off. You can go to this address and then search the site for the above entry:
Click here
If you like, you can try cutting and pasting this:
http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/cubicleculture0226-cubicle.html
"University of Phoenix Spams me about once a day." reports the owner of Joho the Blog. Click here
Frozen phones
Complaints were found online regarding Freeze.com's cell phone services.
The customer's credit card was overcharged for her phone but her phone service was not turned on.
Click here
The service was bad and the rebate proved to be a mirage. To see the tale, click here
Where you can file online complaints about freeze.com
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