Yahoo is suing a group of spammers who used them as part of their scam. The spam mails claimed the recipent had won a lottery run by Yahoo. In reality there is no Yahoo sponsored lottery and anyone who tried to claim the bogus prize had their personal information stolen and was ripped off for hundreds of dollars in “processing fees”. The bogus prizes ranged from thousands to up to a million dollars.

“The unauthorized use of Yahoo’s trademarks is misleading, fraudulent, and has actually confused, misled, and deceived the public,” said Joe Siino, senior vice president of Yahoo global intellectual property and business strategy, in a statement on Tuesday.

“Yahoo! is 100% committed to protecting our users from fraudulent e-mail messages and this lawsuit sends a clear message to spammers,” said John Kremer, Vice President, Yahoo! Mail. “We are going after individuals who have attempted to negatively impact the e-mail experience for consumers across the Internet. Through our continued litigation efforts, our top goal and priority is to further protect Yahoo! Mail users and the public from this type of fraudulent activity.”

The identities of the scammers are as of yet unknown, but Yahoo claims to have information from some third party email service providers that will help them track them down for prosecution. The company is seeking an unspecified amount in damages. It is very unlikey they will actually succeed in winning any money, however.