In an ironic twist, Tagged.com has won a lawsuit against a spammer. A California judge has found Erik Vogeler guilty of spamming over 6,000 of the site’s members with messages that directed them to adult websites. The judge ordered him to pay $25 per violation plus legal fees, for a total of $201,975. He was also ordered to stop his spamming activities at once.

The irony is that the site’s co-founder, Greg Tseng, was himself fined $900,000 back in 2006 when his company, Jumpstart Technologies, was found in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. What’s more, this past November, Tagged reached a $750,000 settlement with the Attorney Generals of New York and Tennessee over its own invitation practices.

The site has had a bad reputation for some time, and some anti-fraud advocates consider it a phishing site.

Whether the suit and the site’s recent revamp of its invitation process means the site is turning over a new leaf remains to be seen, but the irony is hard to ignore!

A CAN-SPAM court decision may hurt the private domain registration business.

Spammers hiding behind private registration of domain names to spread junk email received a slap in the face recently by a federal district court in California. In their attempt to nullify the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act the garbage pedlars argued, among other things, that the law was unconstitutionally vague because anyone trafficking in private domain registrations could be held liable for materially falsifying an identity under the statute.

Ironically, private domain registrations were created to protect domain owners from spammers, scammers, telemarketers and other unsavory types. Under the process, domain owners who want to keep their personal  information private enlist another company, a proxy registrar, to register their domain for them. The domain owner retains control of the domain, but for public purposes, such as listing in the WHOIS directory, the proxy’s contact information is listed as the owner of the domain. The rub to the process, though, is that anyone can use it–even spammers seeking to hide ownership of their domains. It’s a  pair of such spammers that found themselves  appealing their prosecution before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The case, U.S. v. Kilbride, involved a pair of porn spammers operating through a company based in the small African nation of Mauritius. Their spam, which generated 662,000 complaints with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, violated CAN-SPAM in a number of ways including forged headers, fake email addresses and phony contact information. A jury, after a three week trial, convicted the defendants of criminal CAN-SPAM violations and other charges. One smut circulator received a 6.5 year prison term; the other, five years in the Big House.

In their arguments before the court, the skin merchants asserted that CAN-SPAM is too vague in its definition of material falsification to meet constitutional standards because it criminalizes private registration of domain names. The court, however, wasn’t buying that contention. “We fail to perceive any vagueness on this point,” the judges opined.

Passed in 2003, CAN-SPAM provides penalties for anyone, among  other things, who “materially falsifies header information in multiple commercial electronic mail messages and intentionally initiates the transmission of such messages” or “registers, using information that materially falsifies the identity of the actual registrant, for five or more electronic mail accounts or online user accounts or two or more domain names, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages from any combination of such accounts or domain names…” Continue reading Private registration no defense for spammers»

Microsoft has announcedthat it’s suing a Hong Kong-based ringtone company, saying it phished and spammed its Microsoft Live Messenger users. The company, Funmobile is accused of sending thousands of spam messages via IM over the past 4 months. Microsoft wants an injunction against the company as well as monetary damages.

Microsoft said in the suit that Funmobile-doing business here as Mobilefundster, sent IM’s with links to a site called MeetYourIM. Those who clicked on it were brought to the site and asked to type in their MSN username and password. Upon doing so the company collected all the addresses in the users contact list and spammed them with the same message.

          “This kind of activity crosses the line from legitimate third party services to ‘parasiteware’ that harms our customers,” wrote Tim Cranton, a lawyer with Microsoft’s Internet Safety Enforcement group, in a blog posting.

Such spam is called “Spim” and can be particularly effective because it looks to the recipient like it came from a friend. The suit also claims that Funmobile used a fake MS support page as part of its phishing activities and directed users to porn sites.

Microsoft says they hope the suit will send a message to other companies thinking of using the same techniques. Funmobile has had no comment about the suit.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo lashed out at social networking service Tagged.com, accusing it of distributing millions of pieces of spam and tricking its users into giving up personal information used in sending said spam.

Cuomo claims that between April and June Tagged.com sent out messages to consumer’s contacts that were fake notifications that looked as though they were coming from a friend. He says his office intends to sue for deceptive email-marketing and invasion of privacy.

Continue reading NY Attorney General Announces Intent to Sue Tagged.com»

Disgraced former FL District Attorney Jack Thompson is facing spam charges for flooding a Utah State Senator with complaints about the CAN-SPAM Act. Oh the irony!  Thompson was disabarred last September for making false statements to tribunals, disparaging litigants and other lawyers, and improperly practicing  law outside the state of Florida.

The possible spam charges come as a result of another barrage of emails he sent in an attempt to pursuade Utah lawmakers to override a veto of a law that would have made the sale of video games labled Mature illegal. Thompson is a rabid anti-video game activist.

          “In the grip of such legislative ignorance, Mr. Waddoups has today threatened Mr. Thompson with criminal prosecution by Utah’s Attorney General for writing him, the ultimate purpose of which is to encourage Utah legislature to override Gov. Huntsman bizarre veto,” reads Thompson’s press release. “Thompson also informed Sen. Waddoups that the same Attorney General he wants to have prosecute Thompson has received thousands of dollars from the video game industry whom Mr. Shurtleff now helps protect. Gov. Huntsman has received their money as well. What a surprise. This is pay to play in Utah. Maybe the whistle blowing as to this is what concerns Mr. Waddoups the most.”

The email in question included an image of two barely clad women about to give a Grand Theft Auto IV character a lap dance. When State Senate President Waddoups asked to be removed from Thompson’s email list, he refused, leading Waddoup to seek charges under the CAN-SPAM Act, which carries fines of up to $11,000. Thompson pledges to fight any charges and keep his vendetta against video games going strong.

Infamous “Spam King” Sanford Wallace is being sued once again. This time it’s by Facebook, who filed a federal suit against him and two of his associates last week in San Jose District Court. The suit alleges that Wallace and his associates ran an email harvesting operation on the popular social networking site. It worked by sending Facebook users a message telling them their profile pic had been found on another website and provided a link. When the user clicked it, they were taken to another site where a popup box asked for their name and email address, after which another popup asked them to choose a password. If they do this they are sent on a wild goose chase of popups and fake error pages before finally being presented with the alleged pic of them, which naturally isn’t a pic of them at all but a picture of a monkey or a similar gag. The site then reveals it’s all a fun prank and encourages the user to try it on all their friends.

The site’s true intent is to harvest email addresses and passwords. While the site provides a disclaimer advising the user NOT to use their Facebook password or any other password already in use on a different site or account, they know many users use the same password everywhere, in fact they are banking on it.

Neither Facebook or Wallace has commented on the suit, but this is nothing new for Wallace. A little less than a year ago, MySpace won a lawsuit against him, and over the years he’s also been sued by CompuServe, AOL, and the FTC.