FTC CANSPAM ACTION: Brian Muir, Jesse Goldberg, Caleb Wickman. [Link]
 

http://ftc.gov/opa/2005/05/housewives.htm

congrats on making the front page of http://ftc.gov too!

Spammer?s Invitation to Date Lonely Housewives Halted by Court at FTC?s Request

An operation that spammed millions of consumers with graphic sexual descriptions to drive traffic to their Web sites to ?date lonely housewives? has been halted by the court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve has ordered a temporary halt to the spamming and has frozen the assets of the outfit, pending a hearing on the FTC?s request for a preliminary and permanent injunction for violations of federal law.

The FTC alleges that the ?date lonely wife? spam typically contains short messages or a picture and a hyperlink promoting the ?lonely wives? service. The agency charges that the spam violates nearly every provision of the CAN-SPAM Act. It contains misleading headers and deceptive subject lines. It does not contain a link to allow consumers to opt out of receiving future spam, does not contain a valid postal address, and does not contain the disclosure, required by law, that it is sexually explicit. It also includes sexual materials in the initially viewable area of the e-mail, in violation of the FTC?s Adult Labeling Rule. The FTC has asked the court to permanently bar the illegal spam and to order the operation to give up its ill-gotten gains.

In papers filed with the court, the FTC alleges that the operators control more than 180 Web sites that claim to be registered to people around the world. The defendants use an offshore payment processor on the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean, have foreign bank accounts to collect spam proceeds, and use a Cyprus-based company name and address to front the operation. According to the FTC, they route their spam messages through other people?s computers, falsify contact e-mail addresses, and obscure tools that would allow a recipient to stop or complain about the spam. The FTC alleges that the operation is actually U.S.-based and that the defendants are trying to conceal their identities from U.S. law enforcers.

The FTC complaint names Cleverlink Trading Limited, Real World Media, LLC and their principles, Brian D. Muir, Jesse Goldberg, and Caleb Wolf Wickman. The defendants are based in California.

The FTC complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Chicago.

This case was brought with the valuable assistance of the Microsoft Corporation.

whats wrong with dating lonely wife? :)

Good old Microsoft.. they have their finger in so many pies...

couldn't have happened to nicer guys....

guess this helps to answer the off-shore "protection" question...

Wow, considering their operation was mostly offshore (based on the FTC page), I'm surprised they were able to come after them. Good luck guys.
WG

isn't Brian Muir adultcash.com?

why would u offer a 'good luck' to scum? you send well wishes to lots of dirtbags?

shit rolls downhill

the hosts, sponsors, and all the vendors and resellers can expect to hear from somebody.

closet spoofers and spammers and spam middle-people will all get pinched in this one.

yeah... thought about the same

Why people don't play by the rules I'll never know. Too cheap/lazy to set up a can spam compliant operation, and look what happens. Stupid.

even if they did setup compliant mailers, they would have still been breaking a shitload of laws.

What does that mean?

If they're still breaking laws, they're not compliant.

"The defendants use an offshore payment processor on the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean, have foreign bank accounts to collect spam proceeds, and use a Cyprus-based company name and address to front the operation."

Those things are against the law? I don't think so. That's not what they're being charged with.

Muir sounds familiar...what program does he own?

adultcash

also rumours of ghbcash and ketaminebucks and steroiddollars

You want take cheap shots the guy why not reveal who you are ??


are you afraid ?

This sucks.....can spam is a load of bullshit

you are right, it is important to stick to the topic

all character witnesses volunteering to help these great guys out at the trial, email the ftc right away.

http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=8902

http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?P...tent_ID=228323

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content...at=8&id=338527

http://i-newswire.com/pr22245.html

The sky is falling for the spammers :(

your so right TheBum, all these uncompliant pr0n spammers such as

dollarmachine
silvercash
nastychannels
stiffycash
brothersincash

will all goto jail. i forward the crazy spam i get in my spam traps to my contact at the FTC on a daily basis :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

its impossible to totally follow the can spam laws. did you know one law requires you to not send more than 250k emails in a one year period?

all ya gots to do is be compliant
and that is not hard at all... now you can even put a post office box as the address...

They need to nab the asshole sending out:

Where did <name> go?
Tell <name> not to come over
Why did <name> show up?
Did <name> also sent you this?
Is <name> leaving him?
<name> is going in July
When will <name> call?
<name> said leave tomorrow
<name> said hi
<name> told me about this
Is <name> telling<name>?

etc... I've received many multiples of these with various names inserted in the <name> spot. :mad:

I like those subjects. Thanks.

that offshore stuff rocks.
I am laughing my ass off.
wait till the 2257 shit hits the fan.
that will be a gut buster too.
I can hardly wait.

offshore is the way to go.
it gets some cop a free trip to wherever you set up your stuff.
most cops can't afford expensive trips like that.
nice of the tax payers to pick up the tab.
the party is over "sweetcheeks"
LOL

I have this silly notion of waiting until a court decides on a guilty verdict before labelling someone.
WG

:thumbsup Yup... that is the American Way... drugs anyone??? :2 cents: I get about 50 of those a day... of course... drugs only kill you... better dead than running around with a hard on all the time!

Doubt It (Jail that is)... There's a huge network of Spammers that get paid really.. I mean really... well. They don't give a shit if they're putting their Benefactors behind the 8 ball. You can try to enforce the laws... good luck.

BTW... Ever heard of the "delete" key...or... oh yeah... the FTC must be some kinda hero. You need to make them aware of offensive advertising. Protect the incredibly STUPID from seeing... OMG... flesh!

And if they're making so much money... it must mean there's a market for it. Someones buying it. Hmmmm... still thought this was a capitalistic market place.

Say goodbye to the last free frontier... and GFY

another good reason to stay away from spam

I'm so glad I gave up spamming all those years back!

Uhhhhhhh ok and the need to revive an old thread with a new nic is for who's benefit? Odd.

Hotmail gets spamming allot so all they have to do is setup some honeypost e-mails cause big spammings spam using generated list.....

Hehe nice....spamming scumbags.

Uh oh, now the Fiji-based spam posse is getting nervous...
:helpme

I'm a little bit confused. If a company breaks the law they get fined. They surely don't get all of the companies assets frozen. I mean, I'm pretty fucking sure I can walk into my local grocery store and find half a dozen health code violations - does this mean we should freeze the assets of a nation wide chain of grocery stores?

What gives the government the right to freeze the assets of a company that broke a minor law aimed stopping SPAM which has really in effect done nothing other than costing the tax payers millions of dollars to write the laws?

Indeed it does LOL:)

Asset freezing is pretty much standard procedure for the FTC.

since Cleverlink Trading Limited is a Cyprus corporation, i dont see how FTC can freeze thier accounts held in Cyprus banks.
The drawback is that there are US persons that are acting as directors/shareholders of the Cleverlink, so this will probably be a way.

However, if they were using some non US directors, i dont see how can accounts of a cypriot company, held in cypriot banks can be frozen, without a cypriot court order....

I believe it comes down to the fact that they are US residents and are repatriating the money

Dingo, aka merchsolutions.com?

The agency charges that the spam violates nearly every provision of the CAN-SPAM Act.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

what ever happened with this shit?

does that apply to all people who get busted by the ftc for spam, or just the ones who aren't your "good friends"?

God knows how I got bugged big time by thoses guys to promote them.

"Offshore" protection is a fallacy. These guys were completely unscrupulous spammers - doing the entire industry harm for the benefit of themselves.

Don't wish them luck - wish them good riddence imo.