14 DAY TRIAL // Gaming company E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA) has agreed to settle charges brought by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office regarding the installation of a Bitcoin miner on the computers of customers.
Back in April, we learned that an update for ESEA’s software client hijacked computers and abused them for Bitcoin mining. At the time, the company admitted that it was doing some internal tests with its software client, but claimed that it had terminated the project.
However, an employee decided to continue it on his own and managed to make a few thousands of dollars until users started complaining that the software client was eating up a lot of their computing resources. The rogue client is said to have been installed by 14,000 users.
The company apologized and donated the money to the American Cancer Society. The employee in question was later terminated.
Now, the company has agreed to settle the charges brought by New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General and pay $1 million (€740,000). Of this amount, ESEA will have to actually pay only $325,000 (€240,000).
The gaming company will have to pay the rest only if it’s caught distributing software that “downloads to consumers’ computers without their knowledge and authorization.” If not, the rest of the fine will be vacated within 10 years.
ESEA must also create a special page on its website where it clearly states what type of data it collects and how it's used. The firm will also have to submit itself to a compliance program for the next 10 years.
The attorney general names both ESEA Co-Founder Eric Thunberg and Sean Hunczak, the software engineer responsible for deploying the Bitcoin miner, as parties to the settlement.
In a statement posted on its website, the company claims that it has only agreed to settle with the attorney general because it wants to turn its full attention back to its business. However, ESEA notes that it doesn’t agree with the AG’s account of the incident, and it denies that anyone else than Hunczak was involved in the scheme.
“The settlement that was signed makes explicitly clear that we do not agree, nor do we admit, to any of the State of New Jersey's allegations. The press release issued by the Attorney General about our settlement represents a deep misunderstanding of the facts of the case, the nature of our business, and the technology in question,” ESEA stated.