Are There Eyes In My Machine?
Consumers scammed by false spyware removal tool
Thursday, July 07, 2005
BY : Brian Ashe
Up pops a little window on your screen. It says your computer has been scanned remotely and that it contains spyware. Concerned that your data or passwords may get compromised you follow the instruction to click. You are whisked away to a website that offers a "Free Scan" for your PC. After downloading you run the program to have it inform you that you are swimming in a sea of spyware. You then gladly pay the $39.95 to fully activate the program and get these invaders removed.
You have just been had.
According to a release from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), "An operation that used bogus "scans" and illegal spam to market an anti-spyware program that didn’t work as claimed has had its assets frozen and been barred from making deceptive claims by a stipulated preliminary injunction order issued by a U.S. District Court judge at the request of the Federal Trade Commission."
This company was Trustsoft and its product was SpyKiller 2005. The FTC has succeeded in freezing the assets of Trustsoft and barring them from selling the product under a preliminary injunction issued by a district court judge in Texas. The complaint filed by the FTC showed the various types of ads that were cast upon people's legitimate fears of having been infected by such malicious software.
The FTC found that the scans were telling the user that their "anti-virus programs, word processing programs, or any of the processes running on the system as spyware". When confronted with this much devastating news, users were inclined to pay the price to get the spyware removal part of SpyKiller activated.
In addition, the FTC has also submitted that Trustsoft has used mass mailing spam that, "contained similar deceptive claims, failed to identify themselves as advertising, used false "from" lines, gave no valid postal addresses, and failed to provide consumers with notice of and the ability to "opt-out,"", which is not in accordance with the CAN-SPAM act.
This is not the first time that the FTC has gone after these types of deceptive practices in the anti-spyware market. In March, they went after MaxTheater, the company behind SpywareAssassin, with similar claims.
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