U.S. District Court Judge Howard D. McKibben signed the permanent restraining order against Timothy P. Taylor, siding with the Federal Trade Commission’s contention that his company, ERG Ventures, deceived customers with exploitative code.
The judgment, announced Monday, bars Taylor from distributing spyware, adware and pop-up software and requires that he give up revenue, which amounts to less than $5,000.
Taylor ran ERG, which operated online adult site PrivateinPublic.com, as well as Media Motor and JoystickSavers.com.
Company co-owners Robert A. Davidson, II., Elliott S. Cameron, and Garry E. Hill also were named in the original suit but litigation in their cases ended in October.
ERG and its principals failed to disclose that free software was bundled with malware, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Once downloaded, the malware silently activated itself and installed programs that changed consumers’ home pages, tracked their Internet activity, altered browser settings, degraded computer performance and disabled antispyware and antivirus software, the FTC said.
The FTC also said ERG and Taylor used a deceptive End User License Agreement. The EULA claimed to give users the option to halt the installation of the program, but in reality installed the malware no matter what option the user selected.
Microsoft assisted in the investigation of ERG, which began two years ago, the FTC said.