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The Federal Trade Commission stopped a scam that was evolving through some anti-virus products asking users to buy and install their software through pop-ups. Apparently the scam was churned up by these products affected over a million people. The list of softwares involved are as follows: WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus.

The FTC describes this as:

The defendants used an elaborate ruse that duped Internet advertising networks and popular Web sites into carrying their advertisements. The defendants falsely claimed that they were placing Internet advertisements on behalf of legitimate companies and organizations. But due to hidden programming code that the defendants inserted into the advertisements, consumers who visited Web sites where these ads were placed did not receive them. Instead, consumers received exploitive advertisements that took them to one of the defendants’ Web sites. These sites would then claim to scan the consumers’ computers for security and privacy issues. The “scans” would find a host of purported problems with the consumers’ computers and urge them to buy the defendants’ computer security products for $39.95 or more. However, the scans were entirely false.