The FTC (Federal Trade Commision) investigated ValueClick the last couple of months. According to the FTC, Valueclick subsidiary Hi-Speed Media used various deceptive banners, pop-ups and emails to drive visitors to websites. The ads claimed to the visitors that they would get free gifts, like laptops, ipods, gift cards etc. This was not the case and the visitors first had to do a lot of things before they maybe got a chance to win one of these “free” gifts.
The FTC charged that ValueClick’s use of deceptively labeled e-mail offering free gifts and its failure to disclose that consumers must expend substantial sums of money to obtain the promised “free” merchandise violates the CAN-SPAM Act and the FTC Act.
This fine is not the only bad thing happening to ValueClick lately. eBay, one of their major clients decided to do the marketing theirselves now and are not going to use VC anymore to do it for them!
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