Just read this post of Mozilla Security Blog, it's no surprise to hear such fraud, though I've never seen such website in my own eyes.

The posts says:

“Subscription trap” websites prey on users who are trying to download legitimate free software. These sites trick users into paying for expensive subscriptions for otherwise free software.

I guess I am smart enough to recognize this type of bad website from search engine results, which I believe that's how people get touched with the websites.

It continues to describe the crime:

Some even go as far as threatening users with collection efforts to compel payment.

Isn't that terrible? You know there are some conman who cons people already in trouble, they use victim's desperation to squeeze the last penny from victim. In this case of fraud website, they use fear to push the users.

But to my surprise,

Such sites have long been a cause for complaint among Firefox users, particularly in Germany.

I didn't expect to hear Germany, but maybe that only means German people report the fraud more than people from other countries, not all German are victims or create fraud websites.

It's good to see cases have been bring to court, but we all know this is like spams, it will never end. And one part of this kind of fraud fuels this kind of operation is search engine. The fraud websites manage to achieve high ranking in search engine results, that's how they can get some victims who look for good or popular programs.

Hopefully, search engine providers would also notice the issue.