The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) pulled the plug on San Jose-based webhosting ISP, Pricewert, and froze its assets. The company stands accused of shielding companies said to be engaged in nefarious and illegal conduct, such as child pornography, botnet servers and phishing activities. 

The FTC had help from Symantec and the investigation included NASA's Office of the Inspector General. Additional aid came from University of Alabama in Birmingham; The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; The Shadowserver foundation and the Spamhaus Project. 

Pricwert suggests that the investigation was unfair and the company was targeted based in part on the Ukrainian nationality of its founder, and that the company can't be responsible for the bad habits of its customers. The company's spokesman, Max Christopher said that investigative data could be flawed due to difficulties in understanding documents written in Russian, that Internet access was interrupted without notice, and that the FTC has ruined the company's reputation. 

More on the subject in the Network World / PCWorld article, "ISP Pricewert Protests Shutdown", by Ellen Messmer