To: Janice Shell who wrote (1832 ) 6/7/1999 5:12:00 PM From: Q. Respond to of 7056
Washington Post: Dorian Reed swindled customers in an advertising scam Here's the article: The Washington Post March 05, 1998, Thursday, Final Edition SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. E02 LENGTH: 456 words HEADLINE: FTC Sues Online Marketer Over Alleged Spam Scam BYLINE: David Segal, Washington Post Staff Writer BODY: The Federal Trade Commission yesterday sued an online marketing company for allegedly swindling consumers in an advertising scam, marking the first time that agency officials have targeted a producer of unsolicited mass e-mail -- also known as spam. FTC attorneys said Internet Business Broadcasting, a California company that operates Internet magazines, was sued because its spam was used to defraud consumers. Executives at the company, based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., could not be reached yesterday for a comment. The company's listed phone number yields a recording saying that the number is no longer in service. The company's Web site at ibb.com apparently has been dismantled. Unless it contains misleading information designed to fool consumers, spam is legal and an increasingly popular advertising tactic with online marketers hoping to reach a large audience on the cheap. Computer users, however, say they are swamped and annoyed by spam and Congress now is considering a number of bills that could curb the practice eventually. The FTC has asked a group of Internet experts to study the topic. "Right now the agency is in a wait-and-see mode to see what the people in the industry and in privacy advocacy groups have to say about it," said Eileen Harrington, the FTC's associate director of marketing practices. "It's a hugely effective way to reach a lot of people and it's not, per se, a bad thing." Online experts say that few issues unite computer users quite like hostility to spammers, but a consensus has yet to emerge about what to do about them. Ricocheting around Congress are several bills offering measures ranging from the draconian, such as making spam illegal, to the incremental, such as allowing consumers to have their names removed from online mailing lists. "The question is how do you settle the privacy and speech issues while ensuring that e-mail remains a useful medium," said Deirdre Mulligan, staff counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington. According to the FTC, executives at Internet Business Broadcasting said they operated City Edition, an online newspaper. Investors who responded to IBB's e-mailings were sold advertising space in City Edition, which then allegedly could be sold to businesses at a premium. The company offered a money-back guarantee to investors and suggested that their money would double in a year. Few investors were able to achieve anything close to those results, FTC officials said, and none got refunds. "I don't know the exact number of people scammed but we know of at least seven people who lost between $ 5,000 to $ 7,000," said Mona Spivack, an FTC attorney. "One person lost $ 12,000."