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FTC Tags DirectRevenue For $1.5 Million
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-02-19
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A settlement with DirectRevenue and four of its principals will bar the company from offering future downloads without the express consent of users, and a straightforward way to uninstall it.
The Federal Trade Commission had accused DirectRevenue of using unfair and deceptive methods of dropping its adware onto consumer PCs. Those downloads also obstructed the easy removal of the adware after installation.
That practice angered federal authorities, who hauled the New York-based company and four main people into court. A FTC statement named those principals as Joshua Abram, Daniel Kaufman, Alan Murray, and Rodney Hook.
Provisions of the settlement require DirectRevenue not to deliver ads to any computer through adware installed before October 1, 2005. DirectRevenue can send those users up to three opt-in requests asking for their consent to receive the ads; those notices must advise users of the FTC settlement.
Despite the settlement, not all of the FTC commissioners were satisfied with its terms. Jon Leibowitz dissented, the only one to do so in the 4-1 vote favoring the settlement:
In his dissenting statement, Commissioner Leibowitz said, "In this consent agreement, Commission staff obtained strong injunctive relief that will put an end to practices that allowed DirectRevenue to foist unwanted software on untold millions of consumers.
But the $1.5 million in monetary relief that the Commission obtained as part of the consent agreement is a disappointment because it apparently leaves DirectRevenue's owners lining their pockets with more than $20 million from a business model based on deceit."
If the $20 million figure is accurate, the $1.5 million would be little more than a cost of doing business, and probably not the punitive amount one might expect the FTC to mete out for widespread, deceptive adware practices.
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Tags: FTC, DirectRevenue
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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