Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna filed suit Aug. 14 in King County Superior Court in Seattle. MovieLand.com’s parent company, West Hills, Calif.-based Digital Enterprises, and two company principles, Easton Herd and Andrew Garroni of Los Angeles, are charged with violating the state’s antispyware and consumer protection laws.
The government lawsuit, filed last week in Los Angeles, alleges that MovieLand.com, also known as MoviePass.tv or MediaPipe, installed software via its download manager onto users’ PCs without them knowing, and displayed intrusive popup ads demanding a $99 licensing fee for the downloaded software.
The recently formed Stop Badware Coalition has deemed MovieLand.com one of the web’s most egregious offenders of spyware and adware.
MovieLand.com’s terms and conditions states, in part, “Once the software is installed on your computer, it will create auto-start features within your operating system that will run processes on your system. These processes and all components of the software can be completely removed should you elect to cancel your trial within the specified trial period. If you do not cancel … our software management license utility will stay on your computer and will continue to launch on the start up of your computer.”
While the company’s free trial software informs users they must cancel membership during the trial period to avoid paying the monthly membership fee, it does not sufficiently explain what happens to users’ computers if the software is installed, explained Paula Selis, Washington state assistant district attorney.
After the three-day trial period expires, there is no uninstall entry for the software in Add/Remove Programs, AntiVirus.com said. Instead the user must follow a complicated set of removal instructions in order to delete the program and stop the constant popups. If a user tries to uninstall the software through the Windows Control Panel, they are redirected to the company’s website, which demands payment for licensing fees.
“We sued them because we were getting complaints from consumers who felt that they were being harassed and held over a barrel for payments that they didn’t agree to make,” Selis told IDG News Service.
In the adult industry, RageCash and PornKings have admitted to promoting the MovieLand.com program on their exit consoles. However, the links were taken down once the effects of downloading the software were made public. Threads on adult industry message board GoFuckYourself.com also indicate that other affiliate programs still feature links to MovieLand.com.
MovieLand.com is the second company to be sued under Washington’s 2005 Computer Spyware Act.