ration Cure-All" is a long running investigation of companies that market supplements such as St. John's Wort as miracle cures. Due to the potential health risks to the public from unsubstantiated claims about the medicinal benefits of supplements, the FTC has levied major fines against supplement marketers that make unsupported claims. In one case in June 2001, a small Colorado company was hit with a potentially ruinous fine of $150,000.

The FTC, however, is not concerned solely with dangerous online advertising. It also goes after companies that engage in "unfair" Internet advertising practices. For example, the FTC frowns upon online advertisements that promise allegedly "free" services that are not really free.

The FTC fined an adult website operator $30 million for charging the credit cards of visitors who accepted "free" site tours. Disclosures on the site falsely claimed that credit card information would be used only for age verification purposes.

Also, the Commission sanctioned Juno, a top Internet service provider, and Gateway for failing to disclose in their online ads that 150 free hours of Internet access promised to new customers had to be used in the first month. Gateway was also forced to reimburse rural customers for long-distance charges of $3.95 per hour for failing to adequately disclose that the company's 800 Internet access number was not actually free.

Conclusion

There will always be con artists and, therefore, there will always be false and misleading Internet