by Playfuls Staff |
22nd January 2007
MySpace.com announced that it filed suit against Scott
Richter, for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act
and
California's
anti-spam statute. The suit, filed in United States District [more] Court in
Los Angeles on Friday,
seeks a permanent injunction barring Richter and his affiliated companies from
the MySpace site in addition to unspecified monetary damages.
MySpace alleges in the suit that between July and December
2006, Richter and his associates arranged for millions of spam
"bulletins" to be sent from MySpace users' accounts without their
knowledge. According to the lawsuit, Richter either phished MySpace accounts
himself or acquired a list of phished accounts to launch spam campaigns. The
campaigns promote websites offering products and services such as ringtones and
polo shirts, according to MySpace’s filing.
Richter previously has been sued by Microsoft and then-New
York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. According to Microsoft, Richter agreed in
a post-judgment settlement to pay $7 million and to make “fundamental changes”
in his email practices. According to Spitzer’s office, Richter settled that
case for both monetary damages and specific changes in his e-mail campaigns.
MySpace's suit against Richter is the latest in a series of
aggressive steps MySpace has taken over the last two years to combat spam,
phishing and other abusive misuse of the MySpace site. MySpace's successes in
this area include:
* Securing a
favorable settlement in a federal suit against a distributor of an authorized
bot that facilitated spamming on the site;
* Obtaining a
settlement including injunctive relief and the payment of monetary damages in
another federal suit against the sponsor of an affiliate program that was
promoted by spammers;
* Filing a
multi-million dollar suit against TGLO/The Globe for spamming MySpace users and
violating the MySpace terms of use agreement;
* Assisting law
enforcement in taking criminal action against Samy (aka "Samy Is My
Hero") and the operators of "MySpace Plus" for alleged criminal
activity related to spam, unauthorized bots and/or phishing on the site.
