LawMeme’s Rebecca Bolin looks at the state of state anti-spam laws: Fun With Preemption: State Law After CAN-SPAM
The state laws which were preempted–labeling, opt-outs, harvesting–were much less used, if at all. Many state spam laws, including the recently upheld Washington state fraud laws, are still valid. Virginia is still pursuing spammers vigorously using its falsification of headers and routing prohibitions. Washington keeps its individual cause of action even though CAN-SPAM doesn’t make one, and Virginia outpaces the FTC in criminal charges, with a head start, of course
NY Attorney General Elliot Spitzer announced a settlement with e-mail marketer Scott Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com, LLC.. In addition to a $50,000 settlement, the spammers are permanently enjoined from sending commercial email with false or misleading headers, sending messages with the intent to deceive, registering domain names with false information.
This settlement holds Richter and his company to a new standard of accountability in their delivery of emails,” said Spitzer. “If he does not fulfill these standards, he will find himself back in court, facing greater penalties.”
Additionally, Richter and OptInRealBig must retain and provide to the Attorney General detailed customer information and purchase records and a list of all complaints received.
