Three Indicted In Scareware Scam That Netted $100M

Posted by kdawson on Friday May 28, 2010 @04:04AM from the call-center-to-deflect-complaints dept.

alphadogg writes "Three men are facing federal fraud charges for allegedly raking in more than $100 million while running an illegal 'scareware' business called Innovative Marketing that tricked victims into installing bogus software. The company's products generated so many consumer complaints that in 2008 the FTC brought a civil action against Innovative Marketing and call center partner Byte Hosting, effectively putting them out of business. On Wednesday, a grand jury in Chicago handed down criminal charges, meaning the three men now face jail time if convicted." One of the men indicted is in Ohio and the others are believed to be in Ukraine and Sweden. Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit helped out with the case.

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Symantec and Norton by mangu · 2010-05-28 04:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

You beat me to it. Symantec may have done some good stuff, but that was over twenty years ago. Same with Norton but, after they merged together, "scareware" seems the most appropriate name for what they have been doing.
I liked the "pink shirt" book, though, was of great use to me in the 1980s.