Some interstate sales activities are high profile and seemingly designed to catch the attention of law enforcement authorities. In many cases, high visibility activities raise business and enforcement issues. We caution all who wish to engage in interstate sales activities to consumers to carefully review each state's laws carefully and to seek legal advice based on detailed analyses of your particular facts. If a state makes it illegal to ship wine to consumers, then it is illegal to ship wine to a wine writer. While the law makes no distinction between consumers and wine writers, shipments to wholesalers are considered legitimate in many states.
Radio advertising is a high visibility, high risk activity.
Similarly, we have noticed increased activity on the Internet and other online information services to provide not only product information, but sales order forms. If your only contact in a particular state is your Internet ad, states may be reluctant to enforce its laws against solicitation. This does NOT mean that it would not enforce its laws against direct shipment. Your direct shipment of product into the state may be enough contact to have surrendered yourself to the jurisdiction of that state's courts. Each common carrier must make business decisions based on many factors.