ompanies and individuals who solicit business through e-mail will want to pay close attention to recent actions and legislation that stops junk e-mail promoting products and services, both legitimate and otherwise.

A judgment against one Texas company in particular should be of interest to those who use spam to generate business.

In early October 2003, ClickForMail.com Inc. agreed to repay customers $815,000 in order to resolve charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission.

The FTC alleged the company, doing business as AllPreApproved.com, sent e-mail "spam" offering approved credit cards in exchange for advance payments of $49.95 for each card.

The federal charges held the company liable for failing to deliver on promises it made over the Internet to provide the credit cards.

Thousands of people who paid the fee did not get the cards, according to the FTC. By settling the case, though, the Austin-based company did not acknowledge breaking any laws.

The case is one resulting from joint efforts by government and law enforcement agencies and several initiatives targeting Internet fraud. The settlement also came on the heels of legislation signed into law in late September banning spam in California.

The FTC, Securities Exchange Commission, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, three U.S. attorneys general, four state attorneys general and two state regulatory agencies have filed 45 criminal and civil law enforcement actions against Internet scammers and deceptive spammers.

In addition, the FTC and 21 U.S. and international agencies have launched an initiative to get organizations in 59 countries to shut down the open relays allowing spammers to avoid detection by spam filters and law enforcement.

The law enforcement actions target deceptive schemes and illegal scams promoted via e-mail such as auction fraud, the sale of illegal controlled substances, bogus business opportunities, deceptive money-making scams, illegal advance-fee credit card offers and identity theft.

The California law makes it illegal to send most commercial e-mail messages to anyone in the state who has not explicitly requested them. It also prohibits California companies from sending the same sort of unsolicited e-mail to people outside the state, and imposes fines of $1000 for each message and up to $1 million for each campaign.

The law puts the burden of determining whether the recipient of junk e-mail is a California resident on the sender, a technically challenging proposition. It also applies to a company whose product is advertised, not just the company sending the spam.

By some estimates, California represents up to 20% of e-mail sent and received in the U.S.; it is the most populous state and is home to many large Internet companies.

The law goes into effect January 1, 2004 and is the most wide-reaching law of any other in 35 states that are also attempting to regulate spam, or of any proposed bills in Congress. Opponents of the law argue it will do little to stop spam, that it is unconstitutional and that any federal laws passed will supercede it.

The FTC approved the ClickForMail.com settlement unanimously 5 - 0, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois finalized the agreement.

Under terms of the settlement it reached with the FTC, ClickFor Mail.com is prohibited from making false claims about credit cards and selling its customer lists. If the court finds that the company misstated its financial condition, it is subject to a fine of $3.6 million.

And that's a lot of spam and eggs.