Facebook Takes Spammers to Court
Facebook has filed three lawsuits against a company and two individuals it believes are behind massive spamming campaigns on the immensely popular social networking site.
Filed Oct. 19 in a Federal court in San Jose, Calif., the lawsuits allege “violations of our terms and applicable law by defendants attempting to trick people on Facebook into signing up for mobile subscriptions and sending spam to their friends,” an Oct. 20 Facebook Security blog post read. The three parties named in the separate suits are Steven Richter, Jason Swan, and Max Bounty, Inc.
By presenting “fake or deceptive offers ,” in which people were forced to spam their friends, sign up for mobile phone subscriptions services, and provide personal information, Facebook claims that the parties violated the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), and several other state and federal laws.
In the wake of the discovery of a very high-profile Facebook privacy breach in which applications were proven to spread user information to third-party advertisers, the company took to the blog to state its commitment to keeping the site secure for its hundreds of millions of users .
“We’re committed to applying continuous legal pressure to send a strong message to spammers that they’re not welcome on Facebook. Stay tuned as our push against spammers and scammers escalates over the next month, year and beyond. We have other actions pending, and there will be more to come.”
Facebook has a history of court battles and lucrative payouts. In Nov. 2008, Facebook won an $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital, and a $711 million judgment against Sanford Wallace in Oct. 2009.
