TIMELINE

May 11, 2006

KODAK agreed to pay more than $26,000 to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission that e-mails sent by its photo-sharing unit to 2 million consumers violated the federal Can Spam Act. The messages reportedly failed to include an opt-out mechanism or instructions telling customers they had the right to opt out of future mailings. Liz Scanlon, a spokeswoman for Kodak's Imaging Network, blamed the incident on a “technical glitch” that omitted some HTML codes from the e-mails.

May 8

The FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION proposed a rate increase for the National Do Not Call Registry that would take effect Sept. 1. The agency wants to boost the annual fee per area code from $56 to $62. The maximum yearly charge for accessing 280 or more area codes would rise to $17,050. Under the proposal, access to the registry would remain free for the first five area codes. Telemarketers must match their files to the FTC's registry every 31 days to purge any telephone numbers listed there. About 123 million numbers currently are on the registry.

Retired list industry veteran E. WILLIAM (“BILL”) CARNEY, 70, died of cancer May 5 in Boca Raton, FL. Carney had been a broker for Stevens-Knox & Associates Inc. He also worked for National Business Lists, Alan Drey Co. and Wiland Services, and was a past president of the Direct Marketing Club of New York.

May 4

A federal court ordered self-proclaimed spam king SANFORD WALLACE to repay more than $4 million he allegedly obtained by downloading spyware onto computers and duping consumers into buying purported anti-spyware products. According to federal officials, Wallace and his company Smartbot.net exploited a security hole in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser to cause CD-ROM trays to open automatically and issue a warning on computer screens urging consumers to “Download Spy Wiper NOW!” Wallace's company allegedly sold Spy Wiper and Spy Deleter software on behalf of third parties for $30 per download.