Most of us hate spam emails and pop-up advertisements that tell you to click or complete a survey and win a free gift...usually an Ipod, Xbox, trip to Mexico, whatever it may be. It is said that 83% of our emails are spam. The FTC has finally begun to crack down on these spam ads and has fined an advertiser, for a free Ipod, $650,000! The advertiser was in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, which punishes people for sending out non-solicited emails and ads.
These ads are never just "free", there is always a hunch. It also can create bad PR for the company's product that is being advertised as free. For instance, if someone completed the survey and were expecting their free Ipod, they could be disappointed with Apple for not receiving it, rather than the fraud advertiser.
2 comments:
It is good to see that something is finally getting done about all those ridiculous spam emails. I don't know how many times I have accidentally erased something that was really important in my email just because I did not want to filter through all the spam. Also you are right when you say that you normally blame the company who the spam mail is about. It is not fair to them because more times than not they have nothing to do with all those annoying emails.
I wonder if this will be like with Napster when a few people would get sued thousands of dollars, while others would get nothing done to them.
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