Internet Advertising Firm Violated CAN-SPAM Act, Needs to Pay $2.9M

As per the announcement made by Bill McCollum, Florida Attorney General, on May 4, 2010, due to a settlement made with an Internet advertising firm, Florida will get $2.9 Million, as reported by legalnewsline.com on May 4, 2010.

ModernAd Media LLC, an Internet advertising company based in Deerfield Beach, agreed to sort out the imposed claims that it breached the Federal CAN-SPAM Act.

When "Controlling the Assault of non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003" or the Federal CAN-SPAM Act is violated by spammers, it permits the court to settle damages of up to $2 Million. Further, if the Federal district courts find the violation/breach to be willful, they can triple the damages and/or send the accused to jail.

In this case, as per an investigation, the consumers were hooked via spam e-mails, Internet pop-up Windows or paid ads that were linked to different search engines. Most of these advertisements informed consumers that they could get free merchandise.

Reportedly, the investigations laid their focus on checking the credibility of promotional merchandise to check if they were really offered free of cost and determine if the terms and conditions were shown in the manner that they didn't misguided the users. The main reason for this inspection is that the businesses, under the CAN-SPAM Act, are mandated to clearly tag commercial e-mails as ads so that the recipients do not misinterpret it as spam as happened in this particular case.

Apparently, as per the settlement terms, the advertising company now needs to reveal and prominently show all required information regarding Internet-based ads so as to permit end-users to make an informed buying decision before agreeing to be a part of trial offers or to purchase products.

Besides, consumers who think that they are the victims of illegal billing for products available on the Internet shall contact the Citizen Services Division of the Attorney General by filing the complaint online or by calling at the helpdesk number.

While the Court has passed the settlement, the Internet ad firm refused any bad conduct. It said that it was willing to settle the investigations so as to refrain from the inconvenience and expense of litigation, as reported by southflorida.bizjournals.com on May 4, 2010.

Related article: Internet Threat Volumes Overwhelm Security Companies

» SPAMfighter News - 5/13/2010