They Tell You It's Safe—Don't Listen To Them—It's NOT SAFE

On March 11, 2005 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took action against MaxTheater, the company behind SpywareAssassin, a so-called "anti-spyware" product that has been blacklisted by Spyware Warrior since July 4, 2004. The product, SpywareAssassin, is actually not what it claims to be. In its complaint, the FTC specifically named several of the more deceptive and unfair practices that are employed by these kinds of programs including:

• Falsely claiming to have scanned users' PCs remotely and detected spyware
  
• Using high pressure sales tactics through pop-ups and spam to compel users to buy its application, SpywareAssassin
  
• Selling an "anti-spyware" product that falsely detects spyware on users' PCs
  
• Selling an "anti-spyware" product that fails to remove a substantial amount of spyware from users' PCs
  

Here's the link to the Spyware Warrior web site. There's an awful lot of this sort of nonsense going around.

You've seen it too. Surf to a web site, a pop-up appears telling you that your computer might be infected with spyware and that you should "click here" to test your computer. Don't think it's scary? Think again. More . . .