A New York company which claimed to help clean spyware off personal computers has been accused of spamming and using other nefarious and deceptive marketing practices to promote its software.
Washington's Attorney General Rob McKenna has filed a law suit against Secure Computer LLC of White Plains, New York, alleging that the company's anti-spyware software falsely claims that computers are infected in an attempt to encourage computer users to pay $49.95 for a fully-working version. According to the suit, the Spyware Cleaner does not remove spyware from the PC, but rather modifies settings on the computer.
The law suit claims that some of the emails sent pretended to come from MSN Member Services with the subject line "Special Security Alert for MSN Members", giving the false impression that the emails were being sent by Microsoft security personnel. Other warnings are alleged to have been sent to computers running Windows Messenger, to force a pop-up message to appear on recipients' machines, posing as a message from the Windows operating system.
Named in the suit are Secure Computer President Paul Burke and Gary Preston, registered owner of web sites used to promote Spyware Cleaner. Burke and Preston are said to have made more than $100,000 by selling the software through affiliates.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos said,
"Computer users fear spyware on their computers, so to receive a warning that malicious spyware has been identified might easily lead someone to purchasing cleaning software. For anyone to prey on those fears and resort to displaying bogus detection messages, or promoting their products through spam, is simply despicable."
Other defendants alleged to be affiliate advertisers of Spyware Cleaner, and said to have advertised the product through spam email, messages, and Google adverts, have been named as Manoj Kumar, Zhijian Chen, and Seth T Traub.
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