FTC Levies Fine Against Big-league Spammers 82
An anonymous reader writes "The FTC said it has closed down a spam operation in California that sent millions of unwanted messages to online users across the country and fined the companies involved about $2.4 million. The settlement doesn't shut down the businesses and, based on the financial records of the defendants, the judgment will be suspended upon payment of $475,000."
Glimmer of hope (Score:3, Informative)
But then I got to this, near the end of the article:
It's easy to see what happened here. The spammers pleaded with the court, "But we don't have two million dollars!" The court was wary and said, "Fine, we'll just charge you the full worth of your company" (which wipes them out, effectively "shutting them down") but it appears the judge added a provision that if the spammers are lying to weasel out of the fine, they will be held accountable.I have a feeling the spammers will flee the country when it becomes clear they were lying. But at least they will have been forced to give up their nice American lives and their nice American bandwidth. That just might make other spammers question whether the price is worth the profit.
This is a normal FTC settlement (Score:3, Informative)
Typical language: "Defendants are enjoined from engaging in business practices violating the XYZ act in the future."
Of course, there are those that accept the settlement, and then go right back and do the same damn thing again. When that happens, usually the FTC goes directly to court and obtains an injunction against the whole company, and the offender is completely barred from whatever business they were in. Example: "Defendents are permanently barred from owning, operating, or being employed in any operation that involves the sending of e-mail for marketing purposes."
If they violate this, or try to hide, or the conduct is particularly nasty, they get referred to the justice dept. for prosecution.
Everyone's favorite late-night infomercial moron, Kevin Trudeau (speed reading, memory improvement, etc.) got slapped twice by the FTC, so he wised up and instead deceided to promote a completely bogus book instead. Since it a book containing opinions instead of a worthless physical product, the FTC can't stop him, despite him being as full of B.S. as ever.
SirWired