Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles based web-marketing firm, announced an agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer back in April. However the Attorney General's office said no agreement had been reached and negotiations were still ongoing.
Intermix claims it has agreed in principle to pay $7.5 million over the next three years to settle a suit that contends the company was illegally installing 'adware' and other spyware programs on computers without users knowledge. The company's current management has never formally admitted any wrongdoing and maintains previous management initiated the spyware program.
"Intermix does not promote or condone spyware, and remains committed to putting this legacy issue behind it as soon as practicable. Many of the practices being challenged were instituted under prior leadership, and Intermix has been voluntarily and proactively improving these applications and related consumer disclosure and functionality for some time," says Christopher Lipp, senior vice president and general counsel, Intermix.
As part of the settlement Intermix said it would stop distributing adware, as well as its toolbar and redirect programs. The Attorney General's office brought this lawsuit after a six-month investigation into Intermix, previously known as EUniverse. It claimed the company, which owns websites such as mycoolscreen.com and cursorzone.com, was secretly placing spyware programs in screensavers and games.
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