Security Firms Fined Over Never-Ending Subscriptions

Barence writes "'Security firms Symantec and McAfee have both agreed to pay $375,000 to US authorities after they automatically renewed consumers' subscriptions without their consent.' The two companies were reported to the New York Attorney General after people complained that their credit cards were being charged without their consent. The investigators found that information about the auto-renewals was hidden at the bottom of long web pages or buried in the EULA."

Comments

Pathetic

[akanouras]

$375,000? That's petty change compared to how much they made out of it.

Re:Pathetic

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

In the past, when an aristocrat or lord committed a crime against a lesser citizen, they were not held to account in the same way as an ordinary man would. Instead of summary justice, they needed only to pay a small fine or make some other slight amends. This included crimes such as aggravated assault and murder.

Our society is not so different.

Re:Pathetic

[lavacano201014]

They still have a free version but they just don't advertise it.

Re:Pathetic

[oakgrove]

However, this is good news in that despite the EULA containing info about the auto-renewal, that wasn't enough to justify the practise. Further proof that, in the eyes of the law, the EULA is anything but iron-clad.

Humph...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Anybody who is Anti-Symantec is objectively Pro-Virus.

Re:Humph...

[sakdoctor]

Synamic products = Virus
Anti-Synantec = Anti-Virus

Fine

[Hatta]

Security firms Symantec and McAfee have both agreed to pay $375,000 to US authorities

And how much are they going to pay to the people they defrauded?

Re:Fine

[TheRealMindChild]

I'm sorry. While I agree that reading a contract of any merit is important before agreeing to it, some EULA's are DOZENS of pages. I have two colleagues who's whole job is solely to read and interpret EULA's for software that has potential of being purchased. Combine these two things, with the affirmation that you can screw end users by hiding fees in the EULA and you are asking for absolute disaster. It shouldn't be allowed at all.

Re:Fine

[snowraver1]

It's hard to say. As gets brought up on /. quite frequently, EULAs have never really been tested in court. I personally feel that they should be unenforcable because no one reads them, and they are too complicated for the average person. If they are enforceable, it makes it too easy for entities to slip in one-sided terms.

As a consumer, I would expect that any rebill stuff should be clearly presented to the customer to prevent any confusion, at the time of checkout. It should be in bold, and might include a checkbox to check representing that you understand that this will be rebilled.

I feel that at best, it was underhanded and deceiving, and at worst downright fraudulant.

Re:Fine

[Hope Thelps]

Were the people technically defrauded? They did agree to the service via EULA after all...

That's the nature of fraud. Theft is when you take something that belongs to someone else without their permission. Fraud is when you trick someone into agreeing that you can have something. Some cases are very clear cut when the poor frail old lady is tricked into signing away everything she had, some are more mundane like this. There are a LOT of grey areas but getting someone to 'agree' to terms they haven't read or haven't understood is a common tool of fraud.

Re:Fine

[david_thornley]

Precisely where it is now.

The typical EULA either denies certain rights to the user, or requires the user to do something, or establishes a potentially unwanted continuing obligation. Since the user is giving something up, this requires some sort of contract. Whether, and under what conditions, a EULA constitutes a valid contract is still heavily debated, and will be until either Congress does something about it (most EULAs cross state boundaries), or there's enough generally accepted case law.

The GPL does not deny you any rights you already had, or obligate you to do something. It establishes conditions on how you can do certain things that would otherwise be illegal. The user is giving nothing up, but if the user wants to do something beyond use the software, the user must comply with the license. This does not require any sort of contract.

Subscription services and auto-renewal are new?

[djh101010]

You know, I can't think of a single subscription service I have that _doesn't_ auto-renew. In fact, I would be quite annoyed if I had to explicitly tell them "Yes, please, I want the Internet / satellite TV / newspaper tomorrow as well".

Is there anyone surprised that if you sign up for a subscription, that it keeps going?

Re:Subscription services and auto-renewal are new?

[John3]

I get periodic statements for my newspaper and cable/TV/phone subscriptions. Generally speaking those subscriptions are month-to-month. If I don't send a check, the newspaper stops. These folks do offer automatic billing to your credit card, but the ones I have seen are VERY clear about this offer. They don't bury the renewal option in the fine print.

A better example to the anti-virus subscription is a magazine subscription. You know up front that you are signing up for a one year, two year, or some other subscription time period. As that time period nears an end (usually much sooner) you start to receive notices that you should renew. Even if you paid the initial subscription with a credit card, they don't automatically renew with that card.

Re:Subscription services and auto-renewal are new?

[atfrase]

You know, I can't think of a single subscription service I have that _doesn't_ auto-renew. In fact, I would be quite annoyed if I had to explicitly tell them "Yes, please, I want the Internet / satellite TV / newspaper tomorrow as well".

Is there anyone surprised that if you sign up for a subscription, that it keeps going?

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people still don't think of computer security in general, and virus/malware/etc protection in particular, as an ongoing necessity. People's computers slow down, crash, display popups or whatever, they go out and buy some product to "fix it", and think of it as a one-time deal. They don't think of it as a "subscription" and don't expect to have to renew it.

Rebills?

[basementman]

I wonder if this means they will also begin cracking down on people promoting rebills (crap online products that start with an initial buy in price of $2 but then charge you another $60 after a month). Which they try to claim they're legal because they bury it 4 pages in on the Terms and Conditions page which is link to in fine print on the bottom of the sales page.

Malware

[Mr_eX9]

Antivirus companies: The world's only legitimate malware vendors.

Do I get some of that fine money?

[charleste]

<rant>About two years ago, I noticed this after I actually went to their website AND called to cancel prior to renewal. It still renewed, and the "customer service" rep had the balls to tell me that they couldn't refund my money when I called about it. I took that one as far up the food chain as I could - including writing an email to the president or whatever, and got the "immediate" response that they wouldn't auto-renew NEXT time. It took approximately 3 months to get my money back. ONLY because I had documented my cancellation with workers numbers and crap. I figure they owe me about $600 in time. </rant>

Re:Do I get some of that fine money?

[JSBiff]

I find it very. . . interesting, that on the McAfee website, you can turn ON the auto-renew yourself through the account management, but to get it turned OFF, you have to contact their customer service reps. What kind of BS is that? I'm getting my parents away from McAfee, and I myself left McAfee a couple years back. They used to be a good company to deal with. Now, I just don't trust them anymore. Setting up your website like that just screams out to me that they are trying to make it as hard as possible for people to get out of the auto-renew.

Re:If you buy from abusers, expect to be abused.

[MightyMartian]

I don't deal with either, not because of this, but because they're products suck. I use F-Prot nowadays, cheap and simple, with a dead-dog simple LAN client. I wouldn't install Symantec's garbage on my worst enemy's computer, because I'm a bastard, but not a cruel bastard.

Home users shouldn't pay for Antivirus

[pdragon04]

I run my own home computer repair company (but don't have enough bandwidth to post my URL here). I give all my customers the free versions of AVG, Avast, or Clamwin, depending on their needs/preferences. Usually throw on Spybot and show them how to use the Immunize feature as well. My advice to them is to never, EVER pay for Antivirus/Antispyware software ever again. It's doesn't prevent infections and they end up just having to pay someone to fix it for them anyway. The free stuff is plenty good enough for notifying them when an infection has occurred. My customers thank me for my honesty, for saving them money, and I get plenty more business than I ever would shelling out subscriptions to crap like this.

Re:EULA not binding

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, there is no case law contradicting his statement.

see how easy that is without proof?

Free Alternatives

[the_denman]

There are plenty of free alternatives out there, I personally prefer AVG. Here is an article laying the free options out for you.