FTC Settles With Developer Who Installed Apps Without Permission

(February 5, 2016) Users who downloaded a browser extension game were the ones who got played, according to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) action.

General Workings, Inc., d/b/a Vulcun purchased the Running Fred online extension game from its founders and replaced the game with its own extension, called Weekly Android Apps. An extension is a downloadable program that provides enhancements to a web browser. Vulcun did not inform users about the replacement, according to the FTC complaint.

The new app redirected users’ browsers to the Google Play Store and “would detect and click the ‘Buy’ buttons associated with certain mobile apps” and accepted the Android permission notification without notifying the user. “As a result, mobile-device users found unexpected and unfamiliar apps on their devices, and, when users sought to delete those apps, new ones reappeared, without any action from the users,” the FTC found. “After Vulcun acquired the Running Fred game, they used it to install a different app, commandeer people’s computers, and bombard them with ads,” said a spokesperson for the FTC.

Vulcun claimed the new extension “provides impartial, independent selections of apps.” In at least one instance, however, Vulcun was paid by the developer whose app was promoted.

Because the app hid and accepted the default Android permission requests, the FTC said “these mobile apps could have gained immediate access to the user’s address book, photos, location, and persistent device identifiers. In addition, once installed, the apps could have gained access to other information, including financial and health information, by executing additional malicious code on the consumer’s mobile device.”

Under an agreement with the FTC, Vulcun will be required to tell consumers about the types of information or services Vulcun will access and how the information will be used. Before an app is installed, users must give affirmative consent.

In the Matter of General Workings, Inc., d/b/a Vulcun and Ali Moiz and Murtaqza Hussain, individually and officers of General Workings, Inc., FTC Docket No. 152 3159, entered February 5, 2016.