SoftwareOnline, the maker of InternetShield Web security software, has settled a lawsuit by the Washington state Attorney General on charges of deceptive advertising and other unethical business practices.
The company, based in a Seattle suburb, said it will pay $190,000 in fines and change its business practices, which allegedly included bombing consumers’ computers with pop-up ads and offering free “security risk” scans to sell its Registry Cleaner and InternetShield programs.
According to the complaint filed by Washington Attorney General Robert McKenna, users who downloaded the “trial version” of InternetShield but opted not to pay $50 for the “full” version saw repeated pop-up and pop-under ads, dialogue boxes and chat boxes that warned of exposure to threats. In some cases, these warnings reappeared even after users rebooted their computers.
The Attorney General’s office also alleged that the “close” or “X” buttons on those ads often merely produced more ads, and that the uninstall option on SoftwareOnline’s “free scan” software often did not work reliably. In addition, the complaint said, the company’s check-out page included a number of products and additional services that were checked off by default, so that consumers had to actively uncheck boxes to avoid having their credit cards billed for payment after a “free service” period had expired.
A statement from SoftwareOnline issued after the settlement announcement points out that company has made “over a dozen changes in the way we market our products, including elimination of the trial version of InternetShield.”
The settlement also restricts SoftwareOnline from using pop-ups on trail users more than once a week, as a reminder to upgrade to the paid application, and forbids the offer of computer scans to induce users to download the company’s software.
In January, the Federal Trade Commission reached settlements with two other anti-spyware manufacturers offering free computer scans that somehow always turned up the presence of risks on users’ drives and urged them to purchase security software. The companies were charged almost $2.5 million in fines, and one was barred from marketing anti-spyware products or services.
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