Several months ago, I wrote an entry about the company Adteractive, Inc. The company was charged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with using deceptive advertising and they settled at $650,000.

I recently attended the Email Experience Council's Email Evolution Conference where I heard the Deputy Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, Eileen Harrington, talk about how the amounts of these settlements would be increasing in the future. Well, she wasn't kidding. Yesterday, a press release from the FTC stated that the company ValueClick, Inc. "will pay a record $2.9 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that its advertising claims and e-mails were deceptive and violated federal law." Wow.

You may wonder what ValueClick did that resulted in such a high settlement. Like Adteractive, they misused the word "free." In the FTC's words, "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."

There was an additional charge that the company "misrepresented that they secured customers' sensitive financial information consistent with industry standards."

In a press release on ValueClick's website, the company states that they "agreed to a settlement payment of $2.9 million without an admission of liability or conceding that the Company violated any laws."

What can we learn as email marketers? Don't write "free" if it's not really free. Constant Contact's Principal Technologist and expert on email marketing deliverability, Ellen Siegel, wrote a helpful FAQ on this topic that will answer questions about what you can and can't do.