Congress Trying To Stop Pointless Telecommuting Tax

Vonage Runs Afoul Of Dreaded 'Failure To Hyperlink' Regulation

from the to-protect-investors dept

Tue, May 23rd 2006 3:41pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Two weeks ago, after it came out that Vonage was spamming its customers to promote its IPO (trading to start tomorrow), we predicted that their tactics could draw unwanted scrutiny from the SEC. This has proved true, albeit it's a minor violation. Apparently, the email the company sent to customers failed to include a hyperlink to the company's most recent prospectus on file with the SEC. Though it's minor, and unlikely to draw much of a response, the company stated in a recent filing that it could come up in any future shareholder lawsuits. While it's true that the company has made yet another mistake, the company is facing quite a pile-on in the media. If anything the incident shows how easy it is to run afoul of SEC regulations. While the SEC will probably ignore the mistake, you can be certain there are lots of class-action lawyers licking their chops in the event that the company stumbles.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

10 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Curtis Wright, 23 May 2006 @ 4:29pm

Vonage Runs Afoul Of Dreaded 'Failure To Hyperlink
Has anyone said anything about Vonage's attempts to sell by phone? Just curious...that I'm not the only one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Peet McKimmie (profile), 23 May 2006 @ 5:05pm

A picky point, but the definition of SPAM is email sent to an address that you have no prior business relationship with, so SPAMming your customers isn't possible...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- BC, 23 May 2006 @ 5:30pm
  
  Re:
  That may be your definition of spam, Mr. McKimmie, but most of us consider any unrequested commercial e-mail to be spam. If I didn't ask for it, and it is not directly related to existing business dealings (Billing, payment confirmation, shipping notification, and the like) then it's spam.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2006 @ 11:54am
    
    Re: Re:
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2006 @ 11:54am
    
    Re: Re:
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Blaise, 23 May 2006 @ 8:06pm
  
  Re:
  Peet has a point, even though I do believe that any unwanted email should be considered 'spam' of some sort, there is a big difference between some strange random company and a company that you already have a business relationship with.
  
  But that said, most responsible companies allow you to easily indiciate whether or not you want to receive emails of that sort.
  
  I definitely don't agree with it, but it seems there should be some middle ground 'spam' term so that emails like the one Vonage sent out can be properly dealt with...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
fsckr, 23 May 2006 @ 5:51pm

Vonage
I'm always amazed by how persistent Vonage is with all their offerings. According to an article (and I think their prospectus) they spend almost $300 recruiting each customer.

I've also gotten their 'spam' but if I remember correctly, their Service Terms permit that kind of thing.

I can't wait until they start calling....I mean it is not like you can unlist your number from them...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike Mixer, 23 May 2006 @ 7:44pm

mistakes
Forgetting to add a hyperlink to their prospectus?
This isn't a 15 year- old throwing an email ad together for his dad's bakery, whoever did this work
should have known all of the details and regulations.
Lawyers will eat this up because smaller mistakes than this add up to big money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Robert, 26 May 2006 @ 10:35am

Vonage phone calls
I am a Vonage user, but they didn't CALL me about the IPO - I just had a voice mail about it... Apparently, they just put the messages into the VM system without actually making the call.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
plastic molding, 16 May 2009 @ 3:23am

cool site!
How's China printing industry developed this years, who can tell us? China based plastic injection molding services with low costs and supeior quality Steel and aluminum scaffolding for construction is a very useful tool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]