WASHINGTON -- Worried about shady porn sites running up a credit card that you turned over for ostensibly age-verification purposes?
Don't worry. Officials at the Federal Trade Commission are doing their best to ensure safe smut-surfing.
At least that's the case if you're visiting one of the five websites covered under a settlement reached Tuesday with Voice Media, a provider of adult websites that has been accused of illegally billing customers' credit cards. The gist of the settlement: "Free 7-day trial" really should mean free.
VMI -- which runs adult websites such as cybererotica.com, clubpix.com, xxxpassword.com, ff5.com and the particularly well-named boobtropolis.com -- claimed to offer free trial memberships. But when users typed in their credit card data to sign up for the free trials, VMI allegedly billed their cards for a full $34.95 monthly membership anyway.
Such behavior will not be tolerated, the Feds want porn purveyors to know.
Nicholas Franczyk, a staff attorney in the FTC's Midwest regional office who worked on the VMI case, thinks the government should serve as a virtual traffic cop.
"I don't want to too strongly draw the analogy of a cop on the beat trying to catch every speeder, you probably can't do that," Franczyk said. "But you hope if they know we're out there and they're being watched, they'll know they can't do certain things."
Apart from the VMI settlement, the FTC is also pursuing a similar case against Crescent Publishing Group of New York, which operates websites such as playgirl.com and highsociety.com.
The New York attorney general has accused the company of offering customers supposedly free tours, and then billing them. The FTC claims that the scam has generated at least $188 million.
According to a summary of the proposed VMI settlement, which will likely be finalized after a 30-day comment period: "The settlement will bar the defendants from making false or misleading statements -- including misrepresenting whether consumers will be charged for goods or services during a free-trial period -- and will bar billing before providing clear and conspicuous notice of all terms and conditions."
The settlement also bars VMI from changing the terms of their agreements, cancellation or refund policies without first giving consumers the opportunity to cancel their membership.
While the agreement between VMI and the FTC does not constitute an admission of guilt on the company's part, the consent order that will be issued by the FTC will carry the force of law. If the company violates the terms of the agreement, it can be fined as much as $11,000 per violation.
Questions remain, however, as to how effective any crackdown by the federal government can be in regard to Internet pornography scams. The main problem: The porn industry includes thousands of operators, many of them with small fly-by-night operations or offshore bases.
No money is included in the VMI settlement for any bilked victims. That's no big deal, says Franczyk, since porn consumers tend to be reticent to come forward and ask for refunds.
