FTC Targets Phony Spyware Removal Purveyor

As spyware has proliferated on the Web, so have companies that sell spyware removal products. But as consumers have come to learn, many of these anti-spyware tools have problems of their own; they either don't work--or, even worse--are themselves spyware.

Now, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington against the Spokane, Wash.-based company MaxTheater, Inc. for allegedly making deceptive claims about its spyware removal and detection software. Last week, the FTC obtained a temporary restraining order against MaxTheater, banning it from promoting or selling SpywareAssassin.

MaxTheater allegedly boasted that its "SpywareAssassin" software, which it sold for $29.95, would remove all spyware from users' computers. Instead, claimed the FTC, the product left nearly all spyware intact on the computer.

The FTC also claimed that MaxTheater advertised SpywareAssassin on its Web site, and the Web sites of its affiliates, by serving pop-ups telling users their computers were infected--regardless of whether they were.

Mona Sedky Spivack, the FTC attorney handling the case, said that the agency hired a computer expert to test Spyware Assassin before filing the complaint. The expert conducted an experiment that involved loading a computer with 14 separate spyware programs, then downloading and running SpywareAssassin. That program ended up eradicating just one of the 14 spyware programs, said Spivack.

MaxTheater could not be reached for comment.

A Web site devoted to problematic anti-spyware tools, SpywareWarrior.com, lists more than 100 supposed spyware removal programs that consumers have complained about. At this point, it's not clear how many of those companies are affiliated with each other, or how many are selling the same sub-standard software under different brand names, said spyware researcher Eric Howes, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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