Nine copycat websites set up to look like U.S. military recruitment pages seized

Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it seized nine copycat websites set up to look like U.S. military recruitment pages. The websites, including Army.com and Air-Force.com, encouraged potential recruits to hand over their personal contact information. But that data was then sold to for-profit schools for their own recruitment.

The FTC filed a complaint in federal court today charging that two Alabama-based companies, Sun Key Publishing and Fanmail.com, made roughly $11 million selling data to private schools. The companies would contact the potential recruits and encourage them to enroll at specific for-profit schools under the false impression that the U.S. military endorsed the organizations. If the mark sounded interested, Sun Key would sell that recruit’s information for anywhere between $15 and $40. Tens of thousands of people visited the websites every month.

The defendants were charged with violating the FTC Act as well as the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule and reached a settlement with the government. But they won’t have to give back that $11 million because of their “inability to pay.”

Full story @ Gizmodo.

H/T Watching the Hawks @RT.