MySpace Files Suit Against Self Proclaimed Spam King
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Scott Richter has made the news again - not because his OptinRealBig.com, CPAEmpire.com and Media Breakaway operations contributed any landmark efforts to the online industry, but for creating what is quickly coming to be known as "MySpam". Fox Interactive Media filed a complaint on Monday in a U.S. District Court against Richter for sending spam messages throughout the MySpace.com social network that were disguised as messages from members to other MySpace members.The lawsuit alleges that Richter and his operations, listed above, arranged for millions of MySpace bulletins to be sent out through the system between July and December of 2006. MySpace is hoping for a permanent injunction that would bar Richter and his affiliated businesses from the site entirely, as well as unspecified monetary damage charges.MySpace charges that the defendants violated The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, The CAN-SPAM Act, The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, California's Anti-Spam Statue - oh yeah, and breach of contract and unfair competition too. Another charge is perhaps the most frightening of the others, the one that says the defendants promoted false and misleading information for commercial or unlawful purposes, as well as attempting to impersonate MySpace members. What happened is this - Richter's phony messages promoted things like fake free ring tones, free shirts and T-Mobile Sidekick 3s that once clicked on, allowed the spammers to collect log-in information and passwords of MySpace users via phishing and third-party lists. After they retrieved that information, they used those accounts to log-in to the system and send spam.Aside from Richter, the MySpace suit also named co-conspirators Marat Nigmatzyanov, Yevgeniy Leshinskiy as well as other "unnamed collaborators" who participated in these spam-related violations. But Richter is not new to such charges. Calling himself the "Spam King," he and his OptinRealBig.com firm reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General in relation to another spam-related suit back in 2005, which lead to a bankruptcy filing for OptinRealBig.com in the same year.Many legal and industry insiders are saying that this case will be landmark in many ways, serving as an example to others who might consider attacking these popular social networks with spam, phishing scams or other illegal activities. Some Netizens, however, don't see spam as anything more than an e-mail box annoyance, but in cases like these it can cost thousands of dollars - both to MySpace specifically and to the members individually. MySpace currently has over 140 million members.
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Scott Richter has made the news again - not because his OptinRealBig.com, CPAEmpire.com and Media Breakaway operations contributed any landmark efforts to the online industry, but for creating what is quickly coming to be known as "MySpam". Fox Interactive Media filed a complaint on Monday in a U.S. District Court against Richter for sending spam messages throughout the MySpace.com social network that were disguised as messages from members to other MySpace members.The lawsuit alleges that Richter and his operations, listed above, arranged for millions of MySpace bulletins to be sent out through the system between July and December of 2006. MySpace is hoping for a permanent injunction that would bar Richter and his affiliated businesses from the site entirely, as well as unspecified monetary damage charges.MySpace charges that the defendants violated The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, The CAN-SPAM Act, The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, California's Anti-Spam Statue - oh yeah, and breach of contract and unfair competition too. Another charge is perhaps the most frightening of the others, the one that says the defendants promoted false and misleading information for commercial or unlawful purposes, as well as attempting to impersonate MySpace members. What happened is this - Richter's phony messages promoted things like fake free ring tones, free shirts and T-Mobile Sidekick 3s that once clicked on, allowed the spammers to collect log-in information and passwords of MySpace users via phishing and third-party lists. After they retrieved that information, they used those accounts to log-in to the system and send spam.Aside from Richter, the MySpace suit also named co-conspirators Marat Nigmatzyanov, Yevgeniy Leshinskiy as well as other "unnamed collaborators" who participated in these spam-related violations. But Richter is not new to such charges. Calling himself the "Spam King," he and his OptinRealBig.com firm reached a settlement with the New York Attorney General in relation to another spam-related suit back in 2005, which lead to a bankruptcy filing for OptinRealBig.com in the same year.Many legal and industry insiders are saying that this case will be landmark in many ways, serving as an example to others who might consider attacking these popular social networks with spam, phishing scams or other illegal activities. Some Netizens, however, don't see spam as anything more than an e-mail box annoyance, but in cases like these it can cost thousands of dollars - both to MySpace specifically and to the members individually. MySpace currently has over 140 million members.
http://www.protect-x.com/
posted by Maksim at 7:24 AM
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