WebProNews

A federal judge has ordered Sili Neutraceuticals, LLC and Brian McDaid to pay more than $2.5 million for making false advertising claims and sending email messages that violated the FTC Act and the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act).

U.S. District Court Judge David H. Coar ordered the company doing business as Kaycon to stop misrepresenting products, including hoodia and human- growth-hormone-related (HGH) products. In August 2007, the FTC charged the defendants with CAN-SPAM violations and making false claims about hoodia weight-loss products and HGH anti-aging products.

Judge Coar found that the defendants violated the FTC Act by falsely claiming that the hoodia products cause rapid and permanent weight loss, and that the HGH products could reverse the aging process.

The violations of the CAN-SPAM Act included sending commercial emails that had misleading subject headings and did not offer a way to opt of receiving the spam from the sender. In addition the sender did not have a functioning return email address or a valid physical postal address. The FTC complaint says the spam brought traffic to the defendants Web sites, which sold the products.