The FTC has E-mailed warnings to operators of 71 sites that sell air filters, gas masks, and protective clothing of dubious quality.
By David M. Ewalt, InformationWeek Jan 3, 2002 (12:00 AM) URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020103S0017
The U.S. government is cracking down on Web sites selling products they claim will protect against biowarfare agents. The sites have been ordered to remove deceptive claims, or face prosecution. The Federal Trade Commission says it has E-mailed warnings to operators of 71 sites that sell air filters, gas masks, and protective clothing of dubious quality.
The sites were identified in a "coordinated surf of the Internet" by the FTC, with the help of the Food and Drug Administration and more than 30 state attorneys general, according to an FTC spokesman. A team of Web surfers used ordinary search engines and indexing tools to look for the sites, he says.
Products such as anthrax filters must undergo significant, stringent scientific testing in order to be advertised as capable of stopping the threat, says the spokesman. If companies can't prove their products passed these tests, they must remove the products from their Web sites, or face prosecution and fines of up to $11,000 per violation.
The FTC previously sent out 50 warning letters in November, and now says that more than half of those sites have removed their fraudulent claims
===== Kevin Dean Buffalo, NY ICQ: 8616001 http://www.yaysoft.com
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