14 DAY TRIAL // The Washington State Office of the Attorney General has revealed that the Californian marketing company, Adscend Media LLC, sued by Facebook because of the clickjacking and spamming techniques they utilized to promote products, promises to stop its wrongdoings.
“Today’s settlement puts a stop to Adscend’s ‘likejacking’ and other misleading tactics that led Facebook users to fork over personal information or buy subscription services from sites that appeared to be recommended by friends,” explained Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna.
Besides cleaning up its act, the organization agrees to pay $100,000 (76,000 EUR) to cover the trial costs. However, the sum seems insignificant if we consider the fact that the malicious techniques earned the company more than $1 million (760,000 EUR) each month.
We covered scams such as the ones deployed by this firm many times in the past. Remember the outrageous and adult-themed video posts? The ones that urged, or tricked users to share and Like a message in order to view apparently spectacular footage.
They always led to a shady survey website which promised fabulous prizes to anyone that took the time to answer a few questions.
We usually attributed the scams to cybercriminals, but as it turns out, even “legitimate” companies can hide behind the schemes.
Authorities now hope that this court action will put an end to the spamming and clickjacking.
“Under this agreement, Adscend-initiated messages should no longer appear to come from Facebook friends, when they actually originate from an affiliate trying to generate a sales commission from a commercial advertiser,” said Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis.
From now on, the company must introduce a monitoring program that can help it ensure that partners and customers don’t violate any terms of the settlement. In case an instance of abuse is recorded, Ascend must immediately remove the ads and send a notification to the party that breaks the law.