Eau Claire Wisconsin Real Estate with Agent and Realtor®  Shane O'Gorman

I originally posted this in my Eau Claire Wisconsin real estate blog.

Here is an interesting article I saw today.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Tuesday that it has won a major injunction against the massive international spam operation, HerbalKing. A US District Court has issued an order prohibiting the defendants (including brothers Lance and Shane Atkinson, Mike Van Essent, Roland Smits, and Jody Smith) from spamming or making false product claims. All of the various defendants' assets have been frozen, and authorities in New Zealand (where some of the above apparently reside) have been notified and are working with the FTC. The organization claims to have received some 3 million complaints regarding spam mail connected to the HerbalKing operation, and believes the group may have ultimately been responsible for several billion spam e-mails.

The contents of those emails are so familiar it's depressing. Herbal supplements, virility enhancers, weight-loss pills, and prescription drugs all top the charts, although HerbalKing may be in particular trouble for one product in particular. The spam outfit advertised VPXL as 100 percent herbal, safe medication that would "naturally" increase the size of one's penis. Not only did the medication fail to do so, it contains sildenafil—the active ingredient in Viagra. That knocks out the 100 percent herbal bit, and since sildenafil can cause significant drops in blood pressure when combined with drugs containing nitrate, the medication doesn't exactly qualify as "safe," either.

I suggest reading the rest of the article. It is a good read. Not only is spam annoying it is severely damaging to the world economy. In order for these people to make money off the spam the cost is creating a terrific amount of worldwide traffic and effectively slowing down the entire internet. It is scary stuff.

On top of that, what they are spamming here is also not good. These kinds of herbal remedies are not cool. There is a reason the FDA doesn't certify this kind of stuff; it doesn't work! Also many times these drugs are poorly labeled. They have taken banned substances and simply replaced a few ingredients. I don't know a solution to this problem because the FDA isn't going to ban herbal remedies and at the same time companies are abusing this and marketing things they know are harmful to people. There is no scientific evidence for much of the remedies and yet they are still marketed heavily. There needs to be controlled experiments done in a laboratory. If they do not meet a certain set of criteria they should not be allowed to market the products. Many of these are dangerous and should not be consumed.

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