MySpace Sues Man For Spamming and Phishing Its Members

MySpace charged Sanford Wallace with violation of CAN-SPAM Act and California's anti-spam and anti-phishing statutes, MySpace said on March 27, 2007.

MySpace filed a lawsuit on March 23, 2007 in the United States District Court in Los Angeles. According to it, MySpace wanted an injunction to permanently ban Wallace and his associate companies from accessing MySpace site, and restitute monetary damages.

MySpace accused Wallace for launching a phishing attack in October 2006 to make unlawful access to MySpace profiles. There were also charges that Wallace created false profiles, groups and forums on the site, sent out undesirable advertisements to users and enticed MySpace members to visit his websites.

MySpace is one of the most frequented sites on the World Wide Web. The media conglomerate News Corp. owns the community service site. It has about 70 million members and serves mostly youngsters between 16 and 25 years. Still it draws marketers who promote their music and movie items through this site.

Chief security officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam stressed said that MySpace did not welcome individuals or entities that attempted to 'spam' or 'phish' MySpace users. Caribjournal published Nigam's statement on March 27, 2007. He further said that MySpace was committed to aggressively protect its members by using legal action, law enforcement efforts and technological advancements in appropriate combinations.

There have been other legal actions against Wallace prior to MySpace' suit. Wallace who was originally a notorious spammer turned into a spyware master. The FTC and companies like America Online and Concentric Network Corp had sued Wallace. In May last year, a federal judge ordered Wallace and his company Smartbot.net to restitute $4,089,500 they gained fraudulently. That case related to exploiting vulnerabilities in IE wherein the browser advertised and allowed sale and purchase of anti-spyware programs.

Wallace belonged to the earliest group of spammers and became prominent in mid 1990s. He floated a company - Cyber Promotions that spammed 1m messages on a single day. The ISPs kept throwing him down and the disputes led Wallace to the court. After facing lawsuits from AOL and CompuServe he dissolved his company and promised to stop spamming.

Related article: MySpace Wants Apple To Update QuickTime

» SPAMfighter News - 4/6/2007