Two defendants in a case involving a massive “scareware” scheme will settle Federal Trade Commission charges of deceptive advertising and forfeit more than $100,000 in assets that were frozen last year at the Commission’s request.
The two settling defendants were part of a massive deceptive advertising scheme that tricked more than a million consumers into buying “rogue” computer security products, including WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus, according to the FTC’s complaint. The scheme allegedly relied on deceptive advertisements featuring bogus computer “scans” that falsely claimed to detect viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers.
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