A complaint was filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against IST (Integrated Search Technologies) by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) for alleged spyware operations. The complaint alleges that IST and its affiliates “have engaged in a widespread campaign of installing unwanted software on users computers, and have done so using unfair and deceptive practices prohibited by federal law”.
Specific practices outlined in the complaint include use of deceptive dialogue boxes, installation of up to 12 advertising programs that offer no user benefit and the use of unfairly difficult uninstillation procedures. ContextPlus, SurfAccuracy, Meridian Business Ventures, QuickLinks and Internet Optimizer are named as partners whose software is deceptively installed by IST along with IST’s own software. The complaint also states that IST is known for using exploits to install software. Indeed, I [Suzi Turner] have witnessed that repeatedly. The full complaint…shows screenshots documenting deceptive installation procedures from NegativeBeats.com, a site that claims to offer free mp3 files of popular artists.
Interestingly, the complaint states “CDT believes that the manufacturers of advertising display software should be held responsible for the illegal practices” and lists reasons including the fact that these companies continued to work with IST despite the wealth of documentation about IST’s bad practices.
Companies must be held responsible for the actions of their affiliates. While this is an established principle of unfair and deceptive practice laws generally, this principal is particularly important in this case because the affiliates are spread around the world. If companies are not held responsible for the actions of their foreign partners, they have no incentive either to scrutinize those partners’ practices or to break off profitable relationships with known bad actors.
Amen, well said!
I couldn’t agree more.
Nice move. Hopefully, there will be a judge smart enough to understand it and render the right decision.
Hear! Hear! We really have to get some organized resistance to these miserable practices and the outfits that propagate them. Is there any other venue where practices like this are tolerated, let alone legal? Why is it okay to deceive computers users with abandon? If some sharpie went to my granny’s senior citizen complex selling shares in a beefsteak mine, the state attorney general would be all over him. Is it that our public servants are so totally clueless about computing?
I find it embarassing that this company is based here in Montreal. For all sorts of social, legal and economic reasons, this city has become a huge world hub of telemarketing fraud, a loathsome tradition that seems to be sliding easily into spyware and other software-mediated crimes.
Frankly, enforcement in this area in Canada nationally and in Quebec in particular, sucks. There are all sorts of federal/provincial jurisdictional squabbles, responsibility spread over three different police forces and multiple federal and provincial agencies, not to mention a generalized lack of resources. I’m hoping something will come of this, but the FTC lacks authority over Canadian companies with no U.S. offices, and the Competition Bureau’s record in these matters has been less than sterling.
I HOPE it will work, but we’ll see.