Tag Archives: US Department of Justice

U.S. Sues Adobe For “Deceiving” Subscriptions That are Too Hard To Cancel

Adobe,

The US government is suing Adobe for allegedly hiding expensive fees and making it difficult to cancel a subscription. In the complaint filed on Monday, the Department of Justice claims Adobe “has harmed consumers by enrolling them in its default, most lucrative subscription plan without clearly disclosing important plan terms,” The Verge reported.

The lawsuit alleges Adobe “hides” the terms of its annual, paid monthly plan in the “fine print and behind optional textboxes and hyperlinks.: In doing so, the company failed to properly disclose the early termination fee incurred upon cancellation “that can amount to hundreds of dollars,” the complaint says.

When customers do attempt to cancel, the DOJ alleges that Adobe requires them to go through an “onerous and complicated” cancellation process that involves navigating through multiple webpages and pop-ups. It then allegedly “ambushes” customers with an early termination fee, which may discourage them from cancelling.

Customers encounter similar obstacles when attempting to cancel their subscriptions over the phone or via live chats, the DOJ alleges. The complaint claims “subscribers have had their calls or chats either dropped or disconnected and have had to re-explain their reason for calling when they re-connect.” The lawsuit alleges that these practices break federal laws designed to protect consumers.

The Federal Trade Commission posted:“FTC Takes Action Against Adobe and Executive for Hiding Fees, Preventing Consumers from Easily Cancelling Software Subscriptions”

The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against software maker Adobe and two of its executives, Maninder Sawhney and David Wadhwani, for deceiving consumers by hiding the early termination fee for its most popular subscription plan and making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions.

A federal court filed by the Department of Justice upon notification and referral from the FTC charges that Adobe pushed consumers toward the “annual paid monthly” subscription without adequately disclosing that cancelling the plan in the first year could cost hundreds of dollars. Wadhwani is the president of Adobe’s digital media business, and Sawhney is an Adobe vice president.

According to the complaint, when consumers purchase a subscription through the company’s website, Adobe pushes customers to its “annual paid monthly” subscription plan, pre-selecting it as a default. Adobe prominently shows the plan’s “monthly” cost during enrollment, but it buries the early termination fee (ETF) and its amount, which is 50 percent of the remaining monthly payments when a consumer cancels in their first year. Adobe’s ETF disclosures are buried on the company’s website in small print or require consumers to hover over small icons to find the disclosures.

Adobe posted: “Adobe’s statement Regarding Federal Trade Commission Complaint”

“Subscription services are convenient flexible and cost effective to allow users to choose the plan that best fits their needs, timeline, and budget. Our priority is to always ensure our customers have a positive experience. We are transparent with the terms and conditions of our subscription agreements and have a simple cancellation process. We will refute the FTC’s claims in court.” – Dana Rao, General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer.

In my opinion, if your company is being targeted by the FTC, it is because the FTC is aware that your company is not treating its customers well. Adobe needs to do better than that.

US Dismantles Botnet Used For Cyberattacks

Hacker,

The U.S. Justice Department and international partners dismantled the 911 S5 proxy botnet and arrested 35-year-old Chinese national YunHe Wang, its administrator, in Singapore, Bleeping Computer reported.

“Working with our international partners, the FBI conducted a joint, sequenced cyber operation to dismantle the 911 S5 Botnet – likely the world’s largest botnet every,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

“We arrested its administrator, Yunhe Wang, seized infrastructure and assets, and levied sanctions against Wang and his co-conspirators.”

As early as 2011, Wang and his conspirators pushed malware onto victims’ devices using multiple malicious VPN applications bundling proxy backdoors. The VPN apps that added compromised devices to the 911 S5 residential proxy service include MaskVPN, DewVPN, PaladinVPN, ProxyGate, ShieldVPN, and ShineVPN.

The U.S. Department of Justice posted a press release:

A court-authorized international law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Justice Department disrupted a botnet used to commit cyber attacks, large-scale fraud, child exploitation, harassment, bomb threats, and export violations.

As part of this operation, YunHe Wang, 35, a People’s Republic of China national and St. Kitts and Nevis citizen-by-investment, was arrested on May 24 on criminal charges arising from his deployment of malware and the creation and operation of a residential proxy service known as “911 S5.”

According to an indictment unsealed on May 24, from 2014 through July 2022, Wang and others are alleged to have created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide. These devices were associated with more than 19 million unique IP addresses, including 613,841 IP addresses located in the United States. Wang then generated millions of dollars by offering cybercriminals access to these infected IP addresses for a fee.

“The Justice Department-led operation brought together law enforcement partners from around the globe to disrupt 911-S5, a botnet that facilitated cyber-attacks,” said Attorney General Merck B. Garland. “As a result of this operation, YunHe Wang was arrested on charges that he created and operated the botnet and deployed malware. This case makes clear that the long arm of the law stretches across borders and into the deepest shadows of the dark web, and the Justice Department will never stop fighting to hold cybercriminals to account.”…

ArsTechnica reported the U.S Treasury Department has sanctioned three Chines nationals for their involvement with a VPN-powered botnet with more than 19 million residential IP addresses they rented out to cybercriminals to obfuscate their illegal activities, including COVID-19 scares and bomb threats.

The criminal enterprise, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, was a residential proxy known as 911 S5. Such services provide a bank of IP addresses belonging to everyday home users for customers to route Internet connections through. When accessing a website or other Internet service, the connection appears to originate with the home user.

In my opinion, it is good that the U.S. Department of Justice took action against YunHe Wang and others, and prevented them from engaging in these kinds of shenanigans.