The Federal Trade Commission and the California attorney general seek an injunction against a group of companies they blame for 1.8 million pieces of spam forwarded to them by consumers.
In lawsuits announced yesterday, a judge was asked to freeze the assets of an operation they accused of inundating consumer inboxes and using deception to gain personal information. The lawsuits target two individuals, Rick Yang and Peonie Pui Ting Chen, both of Los Angeles, and their companies, which operated under the corporate names Optin Global Inc. and Vision Media Limited Corp.
Unsolicited e-mail was used to market mortgages and other services including car warranties, travel offers, drug prescriptions and online college degrees, the agencies said. The CAN-SPAM Act was violated by failing to offer consumers the option to opt out of future e-mails, failing to identify the e-mails as ads, failing to provide a valid postal address and using deceptive header and subject heading information, according to the lawsuit.
In e-mails marketing mortgage services, consumers would be hyperlinked to Web sites where they were asked to give personal information, according to the California attorney general. The information was sold to mortgage lenders and brokers, the California attorney general said.
Scott Hovanyetz covers telemarketing, production and printing and direct response TV marketing for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
