CAN SPAM What?

The FTC has announced settlements with the operators of a get-rich-quick scheme alleged to have falsely claimed that consumers could earn big money working with the defendants' "secret codes." The settlements permanently ban the defendants from marketing or selling certain types of software and impose a $7 million judgment.

Included in the fraudulent product representations, affiliate marketing problems and other allegations is CAN-SPAM charge:  the defendants were alleged to have violated the CAN-SPAM Act by using deceptive header and subject lines, failing to identify email as an ad, failing to include a valid physical address, and failing to give recipients a way to opt out of future messages.  As I've blogged about earlier, it is not uncommon for an FTC complaint to include charges related to the mechanism for the fraud, as well as the substance of it.