By Jeffrey A. Babener © 2001 A Twenty Year Standard No legal ruling has had more impact on the direct sales industry than the landmark FTC v. Amway decision. (In the Matter of Amway.) In 1975, the FTC accused Amway of operating as an illegal pyramid. After four years of litigation, in 1979, Amway prevailed.

There is no direct selling “business.” The business is defined by the product or service being sold. Direct selling is the channel of distribution. Read why here.

Internet ScamBusters Helps You Protect Yourself From Clever Scams -- Online and Offline... The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CBS, Forbes, NPR, Consumer Reports and many others have recommended Internet ScamBusters...

No one will claim that the application of securities law in the multilevel marketing field is anything new. Securities laws have been regularly applied to the MLM industry at both the state and federal levels since the early 1970s, and many MLM programs have been found to cross the line into the realm of unregistered securities since that time. In recent years there have been several high profile securities actions brought against MLMs...

By Jeffrey A. Babener © September, 1991 A growing phenomenon in recent years ... has been the creation of sales aids and sales tools by distributors and third parties which carry company trademarks. In fact, the sales tools business has become a very lucrative business ..

David E. Sorkin Associate Professor of Law Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law The John Marshall Law School provides a great resource here on spam law

This section of the Law Library contains Federal statutes and regulations affecting the Direct Selling industry, including pyramid, MLM, securities fund, drug, cosmetics and dietary supplements.

There is a part of the famous Amway case that is little known or talked about. Read more in this article.

Want a big picture of what IS and IS NOT MLM? This article The Legal ABC's of MLM defines the ONLY model (the Author's view) of a legally structured direct sales company with multi-level compensation.

It is time for an update and to be more specific about the roles of the persons involved with a network marketing company. For the purposes of this “TEST,” the only two words I will use to describe persons associated with a network marketing company are “participant” and “customer,” with strict definitions.