Mindspark Interactive Network
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Yonkers, New York, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Owner | IAC |
| Website | Mindspark Interactive Network |
| Alexa rank |
 11,661 (April 2015[update]) |
Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. was an operating business unit of IAC known for the development and marketing of entertainment and personal computing software, as well as mobile application development. Mindspark’s mobile division acquired iOS application developer Apalon in 2014, which was known for popular entertainment applications such as Weather Live, Emoji Keypad, and Calculator Pro.
Mindspark's home office was based in Yonkers, New York, with other offices located in Los Angeles, California; Oakland, California; New York, New York; and Bellevue, Washington, among others. Tim Allen and Eric Esterlis served as the co-presidents of Mindspark. Former Mindspark CEO Joey Levin now serves as CEO of IAC.
Although later versions of the tool bars offered are less intrusive, many, if not all, of Mindspark's programs and toolbars were commonly classified as Potentially Unwanted Programs, or PUPs, which may be installed without the user's explicit knowledge or consent. Many of them exhibited malicious behaviors and could be considered malware, as they are difficult to remove.
Mindspark Interactive Network was incorporated in 1999 under the name CTC Bulldog, Inc. On January 20, 1999, the idea for its first product, iWon.com, was conceived by its co-founders Bill Daugherty and Jonas Steinman, and led to a subsequent office opening at Irvington, NY. On October 5, 1999, iWon.com was launched and the company name was changed from "CTC Bulldog, Inc." to "iWon.com, Inc."
On Oct 1, 2000, iWon.com, Inc. launched the sales team, and offices were opened in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. On Nov 18, 2001, the company purchased Excite.com assets out of bankruptcy. The company then changed its name to The Excite Network.
On Oct 1, 2002, The Excite Network launched an online portal called MyWay.com, which replicated many of Yahoo's popular features without advertisements, fees, and intrusive privacy policies. In the same year, the company launched several entertainment products, such as, SmileyCentral and PopularScreensavers, and changed its name to Focus Interactive. In November 2015, the myway.com site posted, "After many years, we have decided to shut down the MyWay website. The site will be available until the end of December 5, 2015."
In 2003, Focus Interactive changed its name again to Interactive Search Holdings. The company's properties now consisted of iWon.com, Excite.com, My Way, My WebSearch, and online advertising sales firm MaxOnline. In December 2003, properties of Interactive Search Holdings reached 17% of US Internet users. In 2004, Ask Jeeves purchased Interactive Search Holdings for $501 million.
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