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Consumer Health Digest #08-42
October 14, 2008
Current # of subscribers: 11,774
FTC hits major spam network.A U.S. district court has ordered a halt to the operations of a vast
international spam network that peddled prescription drugs and bogus
male-enhancement products. The operators include Lance Atkinson, a
New Zealand citizen living in Australia; Jody Smith of Texas; and
four companies they control: Inet Ventures Pty Ltd., Tango Pay Inc.,
Click Fusion Inc., and TwoBucks Trading Limited. The FTC has received
more than three million complaints about messages connected to this
operation and estimates that it may be responsible for sending
billions of illegal spam messages
[FTC shuts down, freezes assets of vast international spam e-mail network.
FTC news release, Oct 14, 2008]
http://www.casewatch.org/ftc/news/2008/spam.shtml The anti-spam organization Spamhaus has identified the network the
largest "spam gang" in the world. Some security researchers believe
that at one time, nearly one-third of the world's spam e-mail came
from a network of compromised computers (a "botnet") that promoted
the defendants' Web sites. At the FTC's request, the court has issued
a temporary injunction prohibiting defendants from spamming and
making false product claims, and has frozen their assets. Authorities
in New Zealand also have taken legal action. The products included
VXPL (an alleged p enis-enhancer), a hoodia product (claimed to
produce weight loss of up to six pounds a week), and various drugs
shipped from India but claimed to be FDA-approved generic drugs. In
June 2005, the FTC obtained a $2.2 million judgment against Atkinson
and another business partner for running a similar spam affiliate
program that marketed herbal products.
[Court orders permanent halt to illegal spamming, bogus claims:
Orders Australian defendants to pay $2.2 million.
FTC news release, Sept 25, 2005]
http://www.casewatch.org/ftc/news/2005/globalpromotions.shtml--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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