Earlier this month, Zango, the infamous adware company, has agreed to pay $3 million dollars to settle a suit brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Only one week passed, and FTC wins another battle. This time it’s even more impressive. It seems that Media Motor, the notorious spyware and adware distributor, finally gets it.
A U.S. district court has shut down an operation that secretly downloaded multiple malevolent software programs, including spyware, onto millions of computers without consumers’ consent, degrading their computers’ performance, spying on them, and exposing them to a barrage of disruptive advertisements. The Federal Trade Commission has asked the court to order a permanent halt to these deceptive and unfair downloads, and to order the outfit to give up its ill-gotten gains.
The FTC charged ERG Ventures, LLC and one of its affiliates with tricking consumers into downloading malevolent software by hiding the Media Motor program within seemingly innocuous free software, including screensavers and video files. Once downloaded, the Media Motor program silently activates itself and downloads “malware” – software that is intrusive, disruptive, and makes it difficult for consumers to use their computers.
A lot of people have been hit by Media Motor malware, which includes trojans, spyware, adware, browser hijackers, difficult-to-remove web browser toolbars, etc. It was one of the most dangerous threats on the Internet. Thanks to the FTC, Internet users now have one problem less.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I found out about Zango because it infected my computer yester 1-28-08. Obviously, $3M is not enough. They need to start arresting people.
Thank you so much for your web page. My only complaint is that you are defending some of the these companies as revenue generators which I agree, this is a fair market, but most of these products are being installed on your computer and making changes to your existing system without your consent. This is called Terrorism!
If Saddan Hussein walked into your house without your consent and programmed your cable television so that it only got Iraqi propoganda television and charged you $39 dollars to fix it, would you call that fair business?
May God bless your web-page.