MySpace Wins Another Spam Settlement

MySpace didn’t bask in the glow of its $230 million dollar judgement against infamous “spam king” Sanford Wallace for long. The popular social networking site, who won the judgement against Wallace last month, won yet another judgement this week. This time their suit was against an affiliate network called Media Breakaway and it’s CEO, Scott Richter. His company was accused of sending over 100 million spam messages a day to MySpace members. The spam hyped a Web site called Consumerpromotionscenter.com, and were sent using accounts stolen through phishing. Here is MySpace’s statement:

          “MySpace has zero tolerance for illegal activity on our site and is committed to bringing to justice those who try to harm our members. Recently, MySpace won a major victory against Scott Richter and Media Breakaway under the Federal CAN SPAM Act. This award reflects MySpace’s continued momentum and holistic approach to ridding the site of spammers and phishers through technological innovation, education, partnerships and enforcement. We will continue to do our part in cleansing the Internet of this invasive onslaught of spam.”

While Richter denied the charges, a judge apparently didn’t believe him and awarded MySpace a $6 million dollar judgment. While MySpace’s crusade against spammers and phishers is admirable, it’s doubtful they will ever collect any of the judgements they win, and even more doubtful that they will do much to discourage the ever growing numbers of spammers plaguing the net.