Symantec has been granted a $3.1 million judgment against a man who allegedly used pop-up ads to trick consumers into buying counterfeit software.
The ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California found in favor of Symantec against Sam Jain for trademark and copyright infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition.
In the suit, Symantec alleged that Jain and his associates used pop-up ads that misled consumers into believing that their Symantec software was about to expire and needed to be renewed to continue functioning. Some of the pop-ups redirected users to a web site selling Jain's own software, according to Symantec.
Also, Jain allegedly operated under names like Greatbizdeals.com to send out thousands of spam emails that advertised counterfeit Symantec software.
"Of all the software piracy cases we've been involved with so far, this one in particular posed a number of serious threats to our customers and consumers at large," William Plante, Symantec director of corporate security and brand protection, said in a statement.
Symantec has successfully obtained judgments against other counterfeiters, including Papa B Enterprises last year and Maryland Internet Marketing in 2003.
