Porn Shakedown Company Takes Its Business Model And Moves On

from the good-riddance dept

Last year, a company called Platte Media came to light in the UK, after it started running a slightly bizarre spyware extortion scheme. The company would suck users in with a site promising licensed blockbuster movies, then take users through a registration process that involved installing some adware on their PCs. It didn't actually have the movies, just some trailers, and drove users to pornographic content. If users didn't cancel the "trial" they'd unwittingly agreed to in the process, they'd start getting popups on their screen, demanding payment of subscription fees. But the company has now shut up shop in the UK, though it's not clear if it's because the company wasn't properly paying taxes or because of scrutiny from the country's Office of Fair Trading. The company says it's pulled out for business reasons, but nobody will likely care too much, as long as it just goes away.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: scams, spyware


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Shawn, 13 Mar 2009 @ 7:52am

    Sounds to me

    "The company says it's pulled out for business reasons, but nobody will likely care too much, as long as it just goes away."

    Sounds to me like they filled their coffers and "skeedattled" before the law man caught up with them. Dont worry too much though, easy money like this is a hard habit to break, they will be back in one form or another.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    #46, 13 Mar 2009 @ 7:52am

    and no legal action from the authorities?
    i suppose law enforcement is too busy catching those evil file-sharers

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    cadss, 14 Mar 2009 @ 10:02am

    nice

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Proj (profile), 3 Sep 2009 @ 3:44am

    pretty

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.