On January 2, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it had reached a settlement with a California-based lead generator resolving allegations that the company facilitated illegal telemarketing calls. This lead generator owned the domain to several websites and sold thousands of leads to third parties for telemarketing purposes.

The FTC accused the lead generator of owning over 50 websites that were actually “consent farms” or websites designed to trick individuals into both providing personal information and consenting to receive telemarketing calls without adequate disclosure. For example, the complaint alleges that websites led consumers to believe they were entering their information to receive a quote for a home mortgage refinance loan, but instead of receiving that quote, the consumer’s contact information was stored in a database and later sold to third parties as telemarketing leads.

In addition to imposing a $7 million judgment against the lead generator and its president, both were banned from “initiating or helping others initiate telemarketing robocalls.” They also were banned from calling or assisting others in calling phone numbers that appear on the National Do Not Call Registry and engaging in lead generation activities.

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