Zango Fined 3 Million Bucks

Zango is a new company, formed by the evil wondertwins of Hotbar and 180 Solutions. It didn’t take them long to run afoul of FTC regulations, which has been aggressive against spyware companies.

From the Reg here:

The company formerly known as 180Solutions has been fined $3m for using drive-by downloads to smuggle adware on the PCs of unwary Americans and for offering no way to remove the software.

Now called Zango, the adware firm has promised the Federal Trade Commission that it will ask consumers first before injecting software into their PCs. And it will provide the means for people to remove the hateful software from their computers.

That could be a lot of people. According to the FTC, Zango/180Solutions software has been downloaded on American computers more than 70 million times and has pumped out more than 6.9 billion pop-up ads. Much of Zango’s ‘success’ was down to rogue affiliates, who tempted consumers with offers of free software and then downloaded Zango software without their knowledge onto their computers.

I have written about the evil Zango Supervillains before here. Bottom line folks, there is no such thing as free ipods, or free Nintendo Wii’s, or free razor phones just for clicking on a stupid ad.