MySpace Brings Suit to Stop Spam

MySpace.com recently 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 Court in Los Angeles on last week, 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 Dec. 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 Web sites offering products and services such as ringtones and polo shirts, according to MySpace's filing.

"We're committed to protecting our community from phishing and spam," said Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer for MySpace. "If it takes filing a federal suit to stop someone who violates the law and damages our members' experience, then that's what we'll do."

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 e-mail practices. According to Spitzer's office, Richter settled that case for both monetary damages and specific changes in his e-mail campaigns.

MySpace says the suit against Richter is the latest in a series of aggressive steps it has taken over the last two years to combat spam, phishing and other abusive misuse of the MySpace site.

For more information, check out the MySpace press release.