Companies agree to settle adware suit

Companies agree to settle adware suit

	Published : Mon, 29 Jan 2007 23:18 By : Agencies Print this Story

ALBANY, N.Y. (AFX) - Priceline.com Inc., Travelocity.com and Cingular Wireless LLC have agreed to change the way they advertise on the Internet in settlements announced by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office Monday.

The settlements mark the first time advertisers have been held responsible by authorities for ads displayed through adware, which deliver nuisance pop-up advertisements and can slow and crash personal computers, Cuomo's office said.

'New Yorkers have suffered enough with unwanted adware programs and this agreement goes a long way toward clamping down on this odious practice,' Cuomo said.

In a lawsuit filed in April, the attorney general's office charged Direct Revenue LLC with installing adware programs onto millions of consumers' computers worldwide to deliver advertisements, monitor Web sites and collect data typed into Web forms. Computer users find the unwanted programs difficult to remove.

The suit claimed consumers who had previously downloaded the company's programs without notice -- known as legacy users -- continued to receive Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular ads through those programs.

Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular, among others, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars delivering ads through Direct Revenue software, the suit said.

Under agreements with Cuomo's office, Priceline, Travelocity and Cingular will only deliver online ads through companies that give consumers full disclosure of the name of the adware program they are using and any bundled software.

The advertisers are also required to label each ad with an easily identifiable brand name or icon, obtain consumer consent to both download and run the adware, make it easy for consumers to remove the adware from their computers and obtain consent to continue serving ads to legacy users.

Under the agreements, Priceline, based in Norwalk, Conn., and Cingular, a unit of San Antonio-based AT&T Inc., will each pay $35,000 in penalties and costs. Southlake, Texas-based Travelocity, a unit of Sabre Holdings Corp., will pay $30,000.

Calls to the companies were not immediately returned.