• BBC News , Monday, December 15, 2008 10:46 AM

The Federal Trade Commission has won a restraining order that forces a handful of companies to stop selling software that promised to rid home computers of viruses and malicious programs, but in fact did nothing.

Consumers would follow pop-up ads for the software to a site where a scan was allegedly performed on their computer inevitably showing dozens of infections and software problems, and sometimes even illegal pornography--but the scans were false. Customers would then pay up to $60 to download the software, which did nothing. More than 1 million consumers are thought to have been caught up in the scam.

The action targeted two firms: Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC. The fake security products the firms were peddling were WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus.

Read the whole story at BBC News »