A TechCrunch investigation has shown that a notorious phone spying company, SpyFone, is back in its business, a year after the Federal Trade Commission banned it.  

Apparently, a groundbreaking FTC order banned the stalkerware app, SpyFone, along with its parent company Support King, and its chief executive Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance industry. The regulator's five sitting commissioners unanimously approved the order, which also required Support King to retrieve the phone data it had wrongfully obtained, and inform victims that its software had been covertly placed on their devices.  

What are Stalkerware? 

Stalkerware, or spouseware, refers to apps that are covertly installed by someone with physical access to a person's phone, frequently in the pseudonym of family tracking or child monitoring. However, these apps are created to remain hidden from home screens, silently uploading a person's phone's contents, including their text messages, photos, browsing history, and precise location information, while also pretending to be family tracking or child monitoring apps.  

However, several stalkerware apps, such as KidsGuard, TheTruthSpy, and Xnspy, possess certain security flaws that expose the private data of thousands of people to greater risks. 

These apps as well include SpyFone, whose unprotected cloud storage server leaked the private information taken from more than 2,000 victims' phones, leading the FTC to launch an investigation and ensuing ban on Support King and its CEO Zuckerman from providing, distributing, promoting, or in any other way, aiding the sale of spy apps. 

TechCrunch, since then has received further data tranches, that include the data from internal servers of the stalkerware programme SpyTrac, which is being operated by programmers that are associated with Support King.