Several Internet stocks are taking some heat this morning following the release yesterday of a Senate report on aggressive sales tactics on the Web–and in particular singling out for scorn a practice known as “post-transaction marketing.”

The report, issued by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, asserts that three Connecticut-based direct marketing companies–Affinion (which is owned by Apollo Management), Vertrue (which is owned by investors One Equity Partners, Rho Ventures and Brencourt Advisors as well as members of management) and Webloyalty–and their e-commerce partners have together raked in over $1.4 billion in revenue “by using aggressive tactics to charge Internet shoppers for club membership programs.”

These guys are responsible for the stream of offers you get for trials in membership clubs, “cash back,” and other services when you are buying movie tickets, airline tickets, flowers or others goods on the Web.

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On Aug. 14th, just 82 days before the general election, John McCain released his technology platform, an extraordinarily important document, if only because of the extraordinary importance technology has to the Nation’s economy. This platform touted John McCain’s experience. It described him as the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, a committee that plays a major role in the development of technology policy. And indeed for much of the last decade, John McCain has led the most important committee in Congress dealing with Internet and technology matters. But that experience, in my view, brings with it a certain responsibility. For the single most important fact about the Internet’s development over the last decade has been the extraordinary decline the United States has faced compared to our competitors.

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