FTC Tries to Can Sex Spam

F_SMASH writes "The United States' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged a group of companies and individuals with failing to include required warnings on 'sex' related spam e-mail."

Comments

Re:Offshore?

[pjrc]

How is the US FTC going to charge them?

Well, from the MSNBC article:

But Harrington said the CAN-SPAM Act, which took force last January, makes all firms that engage in affiliate marketing liable for the actions of their sub-contractors.

"There's a message here for anybody running an affiliate program; you need to monitor what the third parties are doing," she said. "If you are using a business model that recruits others, you are strictly liable for the practices of those third parties. It's not just the people who push the button. It's the business that provides the financial incentive. The law is clear and strict."

And quoting from the CNN Money article:

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants that prohibits them from sending similar e-mails and freezes their assets, pending a preliminary hearing.

Now if all the companies and people involved are outside the US, or they keep all their money stuffed in their mattresses and pay cash for everything, maybe they can just run away.

But if they've done any banking within the US, they probably stand to lose all their money if they don't show up in court. (now if only groklaw would cover these cases....)

MLATs

[taxman_10m]

http://travel.state.gov/law/info/judicial/judicial _690.html

Criminal Cases Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Treaties: Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Treaties (MLATs) are relatively recent development. They seek to improve the effectiveness of judicial assistance and to regularize and facilitate its procedures. Each country designates a central authority, generally the two Justice Departments, for direct communication. The treaties include the power to summon witnesses, to compel the production of documents and other real evidence, to issue search warrants, and to serve process. Generally, the remedies offered by the treaties are only available to the prosecutors. The defense must usually proceed with the methods of obtaining evidence in criminal matters under the laws of the host country which usually involve letters rogatory. See "Questions" below.

MLAT Treaties in Force:

I. The United States has bilateral Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLAT) currently in force with: Anguilla*, Antigua/Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Cayman Islands*, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominica, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Grenada, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Korea (South), Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Montserrat*, Morocco, Netherlands, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Romania, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands*, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay.

Likely.

[www.sorehands.com]

The FTC has gone after Global Web Promotions in Australia. The FTC froze the funds that they had in Canda, along with other locations. Even if they are not in the USA, if they take credit cards, their money flows through the USA.

Many countries have signed the Hague Convention which include the rules on cross border enforcement of civil judgments.

Re:Hmm...

[JuggleGeek]

Ehhh... No. More likely there'd be serious free speech issues involved with banning spam entirely

Nope. Courts have sided against the "Free Speach Means I Get To Do Whatever I Want" argument in the past, with no sign of it changing. The fact that you are unfamiliar with the issues doesn't change this fact.

Faxes have had laws against fax spam for awhile. Those have been challeneged in court, and the laws stand. Telemarketing used to be a minor annoyance, and it grew and grew until we ended up with the Do Not Call list. Tele-spammers have tried to argue "Free Speech" in regards to that law, and again they have lost. You would never argue that I had a right to advertise by painting my ad on your car or house without permission, so why would you believe that spammers forcing their unwanted crap onto millions of other peoples computers to be acceptable?

A couple of quotes from judges :

U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
"[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands."

Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even good ideas on an unwilling recipient. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every persons domain."

So much for the free speech nonsense.

I sincerely doubt that the companies that employ spammmers, especially porn spammers, make enough money to make it worth their while to buy a congressman.

Porn is one of the most profitable online businesses. (Offline, too. Sex sells.) Porn showed other companies *how* to use the web to make money. Even so, the porn spammers were obviously not the ones that managed to get the CAN-SPAM law passed, or there would not be additional restrictions for porn spam. And they aren't all small timers. For instance, Columbia House (you know - the "Get 10 albums for 10 cents!" people) has recently created a porn division.

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) wrote CAN-SPAM. It has very, very large businesses as members. Visit the link. You'll notice that the top section of the page is nothing but search engine keyword spam.

From their page, some of their members :
The DMA membership roster includes companies like AT&T, IBM, AOL Time Warner, Mellon Bank, Microsoft, Home Shopping Network, The New York Times, Rapp Collins, Prudential Insurance, Phillip Morris, Proctor & Gamble, as well as R.R. Donnelley, Acxiom, Experian and DoubleClick.

Now, do you want to stick with your "they can't afford to lobby congress" story? The DMA didn't want spam to be banned, so they managed to get a law past that let congresscritters say "Look, we passed a law against spam!" while actually passing a law that just formalised how to spam legally.

You might want to loosen your tinfoil hat some.

You might want to educate yourself about the issues instead of talking trash just because you don't understand.