Should The FTC Regulate 'Parking' Companies?

[eyedomainous]

“I think the entire online marketing, and advertising, and lead-generation system is a consumer protection problem of both deception, and unfairness, and maybe abuse as well.” - Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director, U.S. PIRG.​

Consumer Advocacy groups, like Public Interest Research Group, want the FTC to oversee lead generation companies (which includes 'direct navigation' leads).

The FTC has broad authority to police “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The Commission has investigated lead generators and their affiliates for misrepresentations in the past.

The Commission says “failure to employ reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect consumers’ personal information is itself an unfair practice, even if the lead generator did not have advance knowledge of a buyer’s intent to commit fraud."

A week ago the FTC held a "Work Shop" on the issues... which I see as a shot across the bow... of Parking -as its the low-hanging fruit on the lead-gen tree.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/2015/10/follow-lead-ftc-workshop-lead-generation

 

[jmcc]

It may already be possible to regulate, or at least influence, some of the larger parking companies as they are US based. The ones outside of the US may be more difficult to regulate. Google will probably lobby against this regulation.

Regards...jmcc

 

[eyedomainous]

Many 'shady' offshore ecommerce firms thought they were safe... until the had their domain ICE'ed.

 

[Donny]

Personally, my company has always been an open book. I have no issues with explaining in detail how things work in my company. So if anybody ever wants to know anything, all you have to do is ask.

As far as lead-gen goes, I completely 100% agree that somebody at least needs to look into it. If you want to see how shady it is, go fill out a form somewhere with an email address, throw away phone, and physical address. And just wait for all of the crap to come in. About 6 years ago, I filled out some lead gen form with a fake name, but my home address and home phone number. I still get calls at least once a week with people looking for the name I used. I probably have received about 45,000 emails, 1,000 phone calls and 100 pieces of physical mail from me filling out that one form.

Donny

 

[eyedomainous]

I had a similar experience. I just killed the email addy I used on the form... at a time calculated to maximize bounce-rate red flags.

Glad to hear your company is an open book. I put 'shady' in brackets because from the consumer perspective parking pages generally have masked ad links, no contact email, phone or address, and the domain is under privacy.

 

[The New Guy]

You want to get spammed with junk mail and phone calls? Just start and register a business with your state - the information is public and gets used by every company out there who sees fresh meat.