Direct Revenue's Cost of Doing Business

I’ve written about Direct Revenue before including their troubles with New York State’s Attorney General’s office.  No matter what they’re accused of they wiggled their way around it and accept a little slap on the hand now and then.

Last week Direct Revenue settled with the Federal Trade Commission to the tune of 1.5 million in “ill-gotten gains”. 

“Federal Trade Commission charges that they used unfair and deceptive methods to download adware onto consumers’ computers and then obstruct them from removing it, in violation of federal law.

In addition, the FTC charged that DirectRevenue deliberately made it difficult to identify, locate, and remove the adware once it was installed.”

Kudos to commissioner Jon Leibowitz who was the only one of five to vote against the settlement.  Commissioner Leibowitz pointed out ‘…it apparently leaves DirectRevenue’s owners lining their pockets with more than $20 million from a business model based on deceit.”

In my business about 5% of any sale goes to PayPal or other credit processing companies. It’s one of the costs of doing business.  For Direct Revenue, there’s the similar cost of doing business but in their case, it’s something that is unethical and illegal. 

Until the FTC steps forward and padlocks the doors of these companies, more business’s will be created with model’s based on deceit.

Read More…
BusinessWeek: The Plot to Hijack Your Computer

InfoWorld: Adware maker settles with FTC for $1.5M

AdPulp: Pop Ups Popped by Feds