A digital photo-sharing service run by Kodak has  settled charges it sent e-mails to 2 million recipients and failed to give them a way to opt out of future messages, the Federal Trade Commission has said.

Kodak Imaging Network, previously known as Ofoto, agreed to pay a $26,331 penalty for violating a U.S. law aimed at curbing spam.

 
The FTC said it imposed the penalty to recoup the total gross proceeds from the e-mail campaign and barred Kodak (Research) from future violations.

U.S. law bars false or misleading headers on e-mails and requires commercial e-mailers to give recipients the option to not receive further solicitations. Solicitations must also be identified as advertisements and include a valid postal address under the CAN-SPAM Act.

"This incident, which took place over a year and half ago, was a simple technical malfunction that caused the customary text to be removed from the e-mail," said Kodak spokeswoman Liz Scanlon. "We identified the problem, took steps to correct it and are confident it won't happen again."

The Kodak Imaging Network lets consumers upload and share digital photographs and buy photo books, cards, coffee mugs and other products.