Another Myspace Suit - Risky business! - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum

smaxor · 03-27-2007, 04:21 PM

MySpace Brings Phishing and Spam Suit against Sanford Wallace

Jon · 03-27-2007, 04:54 PM

Goddamnit.. I was just about to post this.. you beat me to it you bastard!!

For news archiving purposes, here is what the site reported:

Quote:

MySpace announced today that it filed suit against Sanford Wallace for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act and California's anti-spam and anti-phishing statutes. The suit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, seeks a permanent injunction barring Wallace and his affiliated companies from the MySpace site in addition to unspecified monetary damages.

MySpace alleges in the suit that beginning in October 2006 Wallace implemented a phishing scheme to falsely gain access to MySpace user profiles. Wallace created profiles, groups, and forums on MySpace to direct users through deceptive means to websites owned and/or operated by Wallace. Wallace also spammed thousands of users with unwanted advertisements that promoted his websites.

"Individuals who try to spam or phish our members are not welcome on MySpace," said Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace. "We will continue to aggressively protect our members through a combination of legal action, law enforcement pursuit, and technological enhancements."

Wallace, the self-proclaimed “King of Spam,” has been previously sued (either directly or through entities that he owned or controlled) by America Online, Concentric Network Corp., CompuServe, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 2006, Wallace was forced to pay more than $4 million in a lawsuit brought by the FTC for the actions of Smartbot.net.

MySpace's suit against Wallace is the latest in a series of efforts MySpace has taken over the last two years to combat spam, phishing, and other misuse of the MySpace site. MySpace's successes in this area include:

Filing suit against Scott Richter, for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act and California's anti-spam statute;
Securing a favorable settlement in a federal suit against a distributor of an authorized bot that facilitated spamming on the site;

Obtaining a settlement including injunctive relief and the payment of monetary damages in another federal suit against the sponsor of an affiliate program that was promoted by spammers;

Filing a multi-million dollar suit against TGLO/The Globe for spamming MySpace users and violating the MySpace terms of use agreement;

Assisting law enforcement in taking criminal action against Samy (aka "Samy Is My Hero") and the operators of "MySpace Plus" for alleged criminal activity related to spam, unauthorized bots, and/or phishing on the site. Both Samy and the operators of "MySpace Plus" pled guilty and were sentenced in Los Angeles Superior Court.

djmasterweb · 03-27-2007, 05:52 PM

This is Sanford Wallace. I read this board all the time but haven't posted until now. I just want people to know that this MySpace suit is complete and utter bullshit. And I never received any C&D nor am I responsible for almost any of the things they allege. Further, I haven't been served nor have I ever received any written communication from them.

They are so desperate to shift the blame to notorious "spammers" because they can't seem to run their own site. My advice to you? Don't be a high profile suit target. They haven't gone after the actual "worst enemies" on their system. Instead it would appear they are more interested in trying to gain favorable press.

Jon · 03-27-2007, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djmasterweb

This is Sanford Wallace. I read this board all the time but haven't posted until now. I just want people to know that this MySpace suit is complete and utter bullshit. And I never received any C&D nor am I responsible for almost any of the things they allege. Further, I haven't been served nor have I ever received any written communication from them.

They are so desperate to shift the blame to notorious "spammers" because they can't seem to run their own site. My advice to you? Don't be a high profile suit target. They haven't gone after the actual "worst enemies" on their system. Instead it would appear they are more interested in trying to gain favorable press.

Well, thanks for gracing us with your presence Sanford. I've heard a lot about you for a few years now, and used to be a big fan of you and your work. Good to hear you read WF, now start posting more you bastard!

But seriously.. I do feel for most of the people being targeted by Myspace. Although some of them I am not too fond of, but overall, getting sued sucks. I've been down that road before, many years ago, and will never forget it, even though nothing bad came of it. It's a shitty situation. It's also frustrating as hell, and I'm sure you could relate, especially now.

Anyhow, goodluck to ya. If you didn't get a C&D or weren't served yet then maybe this is part of another "all you spammers beware" campaign. But do keep me updated on what's going on.

Broc · 03-27-2007, 10:11 PM

damn
thats cool that the actual guy posted here
i didn't know that legal action was being taken against these guys
scary

Mark Bolyard · 03-28-2007, 12:51 AM

I recently noticed in my myspace profile a little note from "Tom" regarding taking action against myspace spammers.

The question I have is when is myspace commenting considered spam? If you are requesting friendships, and people accept your request, are they not actually opting in to recieve your comments and accept your bulletins?

Perhaps this is specifically regarding mass request and generation of bulletins, comments via robots.

elvanvitar · 03-28-2007, 05:54 AM

I pretty much agree with that. Aside from the phishing aspect of it. If myspace users dont want spam then dont add 'friends' that you dont know.

Jon · 03-28-2007, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elvanvitar

I pretty much agree with that. Aside from the phishing aspect of it. If myspace users dont want spam then dont add 'friends' that you dont know.

Unfortunately "use common sense" is not in their TOS, so the members aren't blamed for it. They are going after spammers partly because they see this as a loss of revenue for Myspace. Let's not forget that Myspace was originally created based on spam. It was a copied version of the then popular Friendster (who by the way now holds the patent for the technology of social networking and is working out a deal with Myspace for leasing). The goal of creating Myspace at the time was to get enough users on there to spam them with offers, ads, products, services, etc. But then it grew quicker than anyone had originally thought, so they decided to go the CPM ad rate instead, packing the pages with tons of annoying ads, and charging $2-$5 CPM, plus $30k-$50k for sponsored profiles. Then they were bought by NewsCorp for $550M, so it was a nice way to avoid the spam plan. But now it's been rumored both inside and outside of Myspace that spammers have generated over $37M in spam related revenue for 2006. Which some may consider a drop in the bucket, but that's just a guesstimate, which I'm sure is a lot lower than the real amount.

Basically, Myspace is saying "this is our network, and the only ones allowed to spam and make money off our users is us, not you, so we are going to sue you and muscle you out of the space as quickly and scary as possible". Well, it's working to some degree now.

There are 90% less Myspace phishers around, and the ones that still exist are not the big boys, they are mostly teenage kids that are offshore or just don't know any better, and small time. Obviously comment spammers are the next target since that has been going on before the phishing, and that's one of the most blatant examples of spam on myspace.

Like with anything on the internet and shadiness.. this is business, and there are ALWAYS risks involved when it comes to "easy cash". The question you must ask yourself is the risk worth whatever you are making? Every Myspace spammer, big and small reading this should at least know that Myspace spam is NOT a longterm revenue and traffic solution. Sometimes it's better to quit while you're ahead. But there will always be those careless and greedy people that don't know when to get the hint and pull the plug, and unfortunately for them, they may have to learn this lesson the hard way. Myspace is not going to stop going after spammers. They aren't going to wipe it clean either, but they will make their presence known and feared by the spammers and phishers.

So in the end. Just weigh out the risk factor, and make your decision based on that. Is the juice worth the squeeze in the end, or is it safer and smarter to pull the plug and walk away in the black but without a lawsuit or showing up on the radar? I'd go with the latter, but that's just me.

Goodluck to whomever is getting sued or will get sued, if you need any advice or help, you know where to reach me.

03-27-2007, 04:21 PM	#1 (permalink)
smaxor Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: San Diego Posts: 1,139 iTrader: (1)	Another Myspace Suit - Risky business! MySpace Brings Phishing and Spam Suit against Sanford Wallace

03-27-2007, 10:11 PM	#5 (permalink)
Broc Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 16 iTrader: (0)	damn thats cool that the actual guy posted here i didn't know that legal action was being taken against these guys scary __________________ Existential Ventures The One Million Dollar Race

03-28-2007, 12:51 AM	#6 (permalink)
Mark Bolyard Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 9 iTrader: (0)	I recently noticed in my myspace profile a little note from "Tom" regarding taking action against myspace spammers. The question I have is when is myspace commenting considered spam? If you are requesting friendships, and people accept your request, are they not actually opting in to recieve your comments and accept your bulletins? Perhaps this is specifically regarding mass request and generation of bulletins, comments via robots. __________________ My Latest Blog Post: When Web Designers Go Bad, a personal experience

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03-27-2007, 05:52 PM	#3 (permalink)
djmasterweb Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 1 iTrader: (0)	This is Sanford Wallace. I read this board all the time but haven't posted until now. I just want people to know that this MySpace suit is complete and utter bullshit. And I never received any C&D nor am I responsible for almost any of the things they allege. Further, I haven't been served nor have I ever received any written communication from them. They are so desperate to shift the blame to notorious "spammers" because they can't seem to run their own site. My advice to you? Don't be a high profile suit target. They haven't gone after the actual "worst enemies" on their system. Instead it would appear they are more interested in trying to gain favorable press.

03-28-2007, 05:54 AM	#7 (permalink)
elvanvitar Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 49 iTrader: (0)	I pretty much agree with that. Aside from the phishing aspect of it. If myspace users dont want spam then dont add 'friends' that you dont know.