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.

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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.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2006 @ 11:54am

Re: Re:
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2006 @ 11:54am

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