Expired Licensee Advisory – TRUSTe Orders Sites to Remove Privacy Seal

October 3, 2000 – TRUSTe today advises the Web community that three Web sites are no longer participating in the TRUSTe program and that they are inappropriately displaying the TRUSTe Privacy Seal on their Web sites. The Web sites include:

• freeshop.com
• buybidwin.com
• gouniq.com

If these Web sites do not remove the privacy seal and accompanying TRUSTe references within the next 24 hours, TRUSTe will direct its legal counsel to send an immediate cease-and-desist notice to each of the Web sites.

Additionally, TRUSTe will not consider any of these Web sites for re-certification with the privacy seal program until all reference to TRUSTe has been removed from their sites.

In mid-September, each of the Web sites were sent a deactivation notice, indicating that they are required to remove all reference to TRUSTe from their Web site. As of today, none of the sites have complied with the deactivation notice. Thus, visitors to these Web sites are given the false impression that the privacy policies remain current with the TRUSTe Privacy Seal program. TRUSTe will continue to keep the Web community apprised of any new developments.

Expired Licensee Advisory – TRUSTe Orders Eight Additional Sites to Remove Privacy Seal

October 6, 2000 – TRUSTe today advises the Web community that eight Web sites are no longer participating in the TRUSTe program and that they are inappropriately displaying the TRUSTe Privacy Seal on their Web sites. The Web sites include:

• AIGDirect.com
• Bondagent.com
• Ecal.com
• Everyone.net
• Giftbaskets-northwest.com
• Kimja.com
• Privacyscan.com

If these Web sites do not remove the privacy seal and accompanying TRUSTe references within the next 24 hours, TRUSTe will direct its legal counsel to send an immediate cease-and-desist notice to each of the Web sites.

Additionally, TRUSTe will not consider any of these Web sites for re-certification with the privacy seal program until all reference to TRUSTe has been removed from their sites.

In late-September, each of the Web sites were sent a deactivation notice, indicating that they are required to remove all reference to TRUSTe from their Web site. As of today, none of the sites have complied with the deactivation notice. Thus, visitors to these Web sites are given the false impression that the privacy policies remain current with the TRUSTe Privacy Seal program. TRUSTe will continue to keep the Web community apprised of any new developments.

TRUSTe Files Lawsuit against Sites Wrongfully Displaying TRUSTe Privacy Seal

October 26, 2000 – TRUSTe today advises the Web Community that it has uncovered two Web sites that are illegally displaying the TRUSTe seal. The sites, which have not responded to repeated cease-and-desist notices sent by TRUSTe's legal counsel, include:

• American-Politics.com
• SurfAssured.com

On October 25th TRUSTe filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, seeking a judgement barring the sites from displaying the TRUSTe Privacy Seal and seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit names the following as defendants:

• American Politics Journal Publications, operator of the American-Politics.com Web site;
• Underwriters Digital Research, parent company of SurfAssured.com;
• Jeff Koopersmith, Founder and Chairman of Underwriters Digital Research;
• Gaudette I.T.A., operator of the American-Politics.com Web site;
• And Eugene Gaudette, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gaudette ITA, a Director and Administrative Vice President of UDR and President and Chief Executive Officer of American Politics Journal Publications.

The TRUSTe Privacy Seal is posted on e-commerce portions of the American-Politics.com site, as well as on a page where users participate in a poll sponsored by SurfAssured.com. By displaying the TRUSTe seal without authorization, TRUSTe believes that the Web sites are willfully deceiving Web users into divulging personally identifiable information.

A description of Underwriters Digital Research found on a Wall Street Directory site touts the company as having "more than 22 million dossiered respondents, with from 250 to 3,500 attitudinal and demographic datapoints on each respondent." Customers of this data reportedly include federal and statewide political candidates, major universities, and Fortune 500 companies.

Said Bob Lewin, President and CEO of TRUSTe, "By displaying the TRUSTe Marks without authorization, these sites are not only causing damage to TRUSTe but also are causing irreparable damage to the entire online industry and the state of trust on the Internet."

TRUSTe discovered that American-Politics.com and SurfAssured.com were using the privacy seal through Imagelock's (www.imagelock.com) spider technology service that scans the Web for uses of the TRUSTe privacy seal. TRUSTe will continue to keep the Web community apprised of any new developments.

 

AppLabs Technologies