Lawmakers Slam Deceptive Marketers

Lawmakers Slam Deceptive Marketers

Three Internet companies -- Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty -- and their hundreds of partners were pilloried by Senate lawmakers and academics on Tuesday for deceptive marketing tactics.
"The IT companies we are investigating have figured out very clever ways to manipulate consumers' buying habits so they can make a quick buck," said John D. Rockefeller IV, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.



The practice at issue is called post-transaction marketing, which involves the presentation of IT products during the online checkout process. When done to deceive, these offers typically appear to be a required part of the checkout process, in order to trick consumers into accepting charges for unwanted products or IT services.