Timothy P. Taylor was asked to pay up $4,595.36 by a U.S. District Court for the District Of Nevada, formally ending a lawsuit filed by the FTC in November 2006. The amount is the money Taylor made from fooling unknowing consumers into downloading spyware onto their computers. Taylor ran his business through TeamTaylorMade.com (which is no longer up), which offered free screensavers and videos. The total dollar amount that Taylor had to pay is small, but is part of a larger case involving a bigger company.
The spyware distributed through Taylor’s site included Media Motor from ERG Ventures, which disabled antispyware and antivirus software, switched users’ home pages, changed their browser’s settings, and tracked their online activity.
The FTC also charged ERG Ventures, its owners, and Taylor with using a misleading End User License Agreement which did not prevent the installation of malware, regardless of whether or not the user accepted or rejected the terms presented to them.
ERG Ventures was forced to pay $330,000 in a settlement with the FTC back in September. The FTC accused ERG Ventures and Taylor of affecting 15 million computers with programs that were difficult or impossible to remove.
Taylor is also required to share the name and operations of all the software he will install on consumers’ computers in the future. He will also have to show consumers an option to cancel downloads after being presented with a disclosure.
Sources:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143290-c,spyware/article.html
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/25842
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