MarketingVOX: Cingular, Priceline and Travelocity have agreed to pay fines of $30,000-$35,000 each to settle allegations by the New York State Attorney General’s office that they hired adware firms that enganged in deceptive practices, MediaPost reports. The settlement is reportedly the first time that marketers have been fined for an adware purveyor’s practices.
Cingular was the last of the three to settle; Travelocity and Priceline did so in December and October, respectively. All three agreements became public on Monday and spelled out the Attorney General’s factual findings concerning the companies’ use of Adware. None of the companies agreed with the Attorney General’s findings or admitted to wrongdoing.
The allegations against the three companies were related to their hiring of Direct Revenue, which then-AG Eliot Spitzer sued last year for installing ad-serving software without consent.
That lawsuit named marketers that used DR’s adware services – Priceline, Cingular, Monster.com, JPMorgan Chase and United Airlines – but did not charge them at the time with wrongdoing.
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