In a rare victory for an accused spammer, a Seattle jury found on March 24 that an adult Web site operator was not liable for unsolicited sexually explicit commercial e-mails sent by affiliates.
The Federal Trade Commission charged Impulse Media with violating the CAN-SPAM Act. The case turned on the issue of whether Impulse Media “initiated” the hundreds of illegal e-mails sent by its affiliates by deliberately paying or inducing them to send the messages.
In the trial, Impulse Media pointed to its anti-spam policies and said it ended relationships with affiliates that violated its policies. It said its affiliates were expected to generate referrals using links from other Web sites, not e-mails. It also pointed out that of its thousands of affiliates, just four had sent the illegal e-mails.
The Justice Department countered that affiliates didn’t have to read the program agreement detailing the anti-spam rules, and that terminated Impulse Media affiliates could reenlist with the company.