FTC Accuses Oracle Of Deceiving Consumers, Company Agrees To Settle

The Federal Trade Commission released a letter on Monday accusing Oracle Corporation ORCL of deceiving consumers.

According to the FTC's letter, Oracle "deceived consumers" when prompting users to accept security updates on approximately 850 million PCs that use Java Standard Edition.

The FTC alleges that Oracle promised consumers that by installing updates to Java SE the end user would be "safe and secure" with the "latest… security updates." However, the company failed to disclose that the Java SE update only removed the most recent prior version of the software, and did not remove any earlier versions that may be installed on a computer.

As part of an agreement with the FTC, Oracle will be required to notify consumers during a Java SE update if they have outdated versions of the software, and explain how to remove it from the computer.

Shares of Oracle were little changed on the news.