Fergie's Tech Blog

Spammers Pay Fines to Settle FTC Complaint

Grant Gross writes in InfoWorld:

Four people operating adult-oriented Web sites and an affiliated e-mail marketer have paid $621,000 to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint that they violated federal antispam laws, the agency announced Thursday.

The settlement also bars the defendants from violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2003. The settlement also requires the adult-oriented businesses to monitor their affiliates to make sure they also comply with the law.

The defendants sold access to sexually explicit Web sites through unsolicited e-mail, or spam, according to an FTC complaint filed in January. Four defendants control a network of businesses that operate adult Web sites, and the other defendant was an affiliate hired to market the content from the Web sites. The affiliate sent many of the e-mail messages that allegedly violated federal law, but under CAN-SPAM, all of the defendants are responsible for the e-mail, including the defendants who paid others to send e-mail on their behalf.

posted by Fergie @ 11/17/2005 04:49:00 PM