FTC sanctions behavioural ads firm over deceptive 'opt-outs'

The FTC has settled a complaint with a behavioural advertising firm alleged to have misled consumers into believing they had opted out of its services. Chitika uses cookies to track surfers' actions on the web as well as the searches they make in order to serve them with ads that more closely match their perceived interests. …

[Pascal Monett]

"it will honour for at least five years" ?!?

Whaddya mean, only five ? And after that it will resume its cheating, sneaky ways ?

Who do they think they are ? Microsoft ?

Man do i appreciate AdBlocker !

[Framitz]

Yep . . .

Man do i appreciate AdBlocker !

You got that right!

I never see ads, so one in a while I'll turn adblocker off for a few minutes... WOW!

[TeeCee]

'Chitika, means “snap of the fingers”..'

"...agreed to settle this complaint, on a no-fault basis..."

So FTC means "slap on the wrist" then?

[Wpgwill]

One word

http://www.ghostery.com/

Takes care of all of them.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is run by...

An ad-Network!

Adblock Plus and good HOSTS File takes care of of all of them and ghostry

The only Self regulation I believe works is me regulating who can display ads and who cant with my own tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like...

... chiquita. Formerly united fruit, of ordering dictators by way of cia infame.

My point? Oh snap! Must've left it in me coat then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Money Money Money, its a rich man's world

Not to be confused with the lyrics from the Swedish Europop band

[kain preacher]

Hey

Atleast they did some thing about it. Look at Phorm.

[MinionZero]

Too little too late (as usual)

@"At least they did some thing about it"

Yes but they did something *years later* ... which means the greedy two faced bastards running the company have earned money for years, ready to pay off any fine they get. For example:

@"are liable to lead to fines of $16,000 per incident"

So what's the betting that only means they get fined just £16k, instead of £16k * number of users fucked over by them.

I've seen enough government actions over the years to see that government departments usual idea of fining companies, simply means a paltry fine amount that the company can easily pay and then the company carries on undeterred. (The fines are just to placate us into thinking the government are trying to stop these greedy bastards who run these companies. But the government isn't really stopping these bastards who run these companies because after all, some of these bastards who run the companies are friends with the government!).