"Scareware" sellers must pay $163M A Maryland businesswoman who "tricked customers into thinking their computers were infected with malicious software" was ordered by a federal judge to join three others in paying $163 million in restitution, the Federal Trade Commission announced this week. An FTC suit charged Kristy Ross , an officer of Ukraine-based Innovative Marketing Inc., with placing ads on popular websites that offered a "system scan" to detect security problems. The scan "invariably detected a host of malicious files" and then sold bogus software for $30 to $100 to more than 1 million customers. Ross was permanently prohibited from engaging in deceptive marketing and from marketing security software and software that interferes with customers' computer use. Read the FTC's press release here. Browse related documents here.
"Scareware" sellers must pay $163M
Scammers sold customers bogus software to rid computers of non-existent malicious files.
October 3, 2012 at 10:00PM
about the writer
Jane Friedmann
It’s too soon to tell how much the immigration crackdown is to blame.
