FTC upholds ban on stalkerware company CEO Scott Zuckerman
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been strict in its ruling and refused to nullify a ban imposed on Scott Zuckerman, the founder and CEO of a spyware company, several years ago.
In September 2021, the competition supervisor banned Support King, its subsidiaries SpyFone and OneClickMonitor, and its CEO Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance business over allegations that the company secretly harvested and shared data on people’s physical movements, phone use, and online activities through a hidden device hack.
Zuckerman was prohibited from “offering, promoting, selling, or advertising any surveillance app, service, or business,” effectively preventing him from conducting any business in the stalkerware industry.
“SpyFone is a brazen brand name for a surveillance business that helped stalkers steal private information. The stalkerware was hidden from device owners, but was fully exposed to hackers who exploited the company’s slipshod security,” Samuel Levine, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said at the time.
He added that the case was “an important reminder that surveillance-based businesses pose a significant threat to our safety and security.”
In March 2025, Zuckerman filed a petition with the FTC, asking the regulator “to correct an outdated and overly broad enforcement action.”
In the affidavit, Zuckerman argues that the ban should be lifted because it makes it harder for him to run his other businesses. He claims that no customers were harmed during his ownership of Support King.
Furthermore, Support King has ceased all commercial activities and business operations. Lastly, he currently runs a restaurant in Puerto Rico and has plans for other “tourism ventures.”
“The continued application of compliance, audits, and reporting requirements to these unrelated businesses is an unjustified overreach that places an undue burden on my ability to operate,” Zuckerman explains.
However, the FTC feels otherwise.
“The Commission found he failed to show changed conditions of fact or law sufficient to justify reopening and setting aside the Consent Order,” the FTC states in a press release.
The FTC’s ban stemmed from an incident dating back to 2018, when a security researcher found an Amazon S3 bucket belonging to SpyFone. Sensitive information, such as selfies, text messages, audio recordings, contact information, geolocation, hashed passwords, and logins, was accessible for anyone to see.
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