FTC Sues Adult Spammers

From a January 11, 2005 press release (see the complaint):

The Federal Trade Commission has charged a network of corporations and individuals with using spam to sell access to online pornography. The FTC alleges that the defendants, acting as a single business enterprise, barraged consumers with e-mails containing sexually-explicit content without the required warning label. Four of the individual defendants controlled a network of corporations that own and operate the Web sites, payment systems, and servers used to distribute and to sell sexually-explicit content. The network also marketed its sexually-explicit content through an affiliate program that pays commissions to third parties who drive traffic to the network’s Web sites. Through this operation, the FTC alleges that the defendants violated the Adult Labeling Rule, the CAN-SPAM Act, and the FTC Act. A federal district court has issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the defendants. The TRO prohibits defendants from engaging in the deceptive practices and freezes the defendants’ assets, pending a preliminary hearing.