Security vendor SoftwareOnline.com has agreed to change its business practices and pay $190,000 in fines after a four-month investigation into the company by the Washington State Attorney General's Office.
The company was accused of several unethical business practices, including offering free computer scans that bombarded users with pop-up ads and did not properly identify security risks.
Investigators also found that SoftwareOnline provided a faulty uninstall option and "tacked additional products and services to the final check-out form," including $9.95 back-up disks and $4.95 service plans, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement released Tuesday.
"SoftwareOnline misrepresented the extent to which its InternetShield and Registry Cleaner products are necessary to prevent attacks from malicious Web sites and computer crashes," the attorney general said.
Founded in 1993, SoftwareOnline sells a number of Windows security and system utility tools. InternetShield is a Web browsing security product designed to protect users from unwanted cookies, spyware and script-based attacks. Registry Cleaner "cleans and repairs unwanted debris left behind by adware and spyware," according to the SoftwareOnline Web site.
SoftwareOnline, based in Redmond, Washington, declined to comment for this story. But in a statement on its Web site, the company said that in response to the attorney general's concerns, it has made "over a dozen" changes to the way it markets its products and has stopped offering a trial version of InternetShield.
"It is important to note that the attorney general did not express concern over the efficacy or value of our products," the SoftwareOnline statement said. "They can and do work."
Consumers who purchased these products can file complaints at the attorney general's Web site. Under the terms of the settlement SoftwareOnline will refund consumers who file complaints or request refunds from the company, the attorney general said.
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