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Facebook & Myspace Taking Some Spammers To Court
kevinqtipreedy writes "Social networks like Facebook and Myspace are now bringing spammers into the court systems in new attempts to put a stop to it. Although spammers rarely show up in court and the suits do not always lead to monetary reward, companies are hoping the 'chilling effect' will help in the effort to curb spam."
Just like it is helping to curb e-mail spam ....
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Actually, my spam on myspace has dropped to nill for the past few months. It used to be everytime I logged in there was 3-4 hot girls that wanted to be my friend which was of course just an advertisement for a pay site. I always marked them as spam (sometimes their account had already been removed by the time I got out to clearing up my friends request). I doubt that it's these lawsuits but they definally did something (probally limiting the amount of new friend requests you can make on a new account per day or something) that did the trick.
Unfortunately, sneakemail has recently been getting blocked by more and more sites.
GishPuppy looks similar (and maybe even easier to use). Is anyone using it, or another, similar service?
Isn't hauling spammers into court a little extreme? To avoid criticism they should try a more gentle approach, like a self-despamming program that would give spammers 90 days to stop, instead of clogging up our courthouses like they clog up our inboxes. We could call it "Operation Scheduled Despamming" after the very successful "Operation Scheduled Departure" which to date has already been successful in 8 cases.
scams targeting women are more accepted as normal. ie... all the ads saying a woman needs this or that product for great skin, hair, ect... every womans magazine and beauty product uses the same tactic to sell crap to women. 'you need this or you're an ugly fat cow'. Its not even thought about as anything but normal.
that crap doesnt work on men. but the ones that play on their desperation to get laid work real well.
Women have their vanity targeted. Men have their hormones targeted.
One is accepted. One isnt.
Well action in the courts has stopped everyone sharing music, so this is clearly a strategy with a great deal of merit.
Thats interesting.
I have not seen this kind of thing yet (I guess I have smart friends ;o)). Are you saying that these people actually have their username/password compromised or is there some kind of facebook app that when installed can initiate this kind of activity?
When I suggested to Mark in 2004 that he make Facebook the largest spam-free e-mail system in the world by continuing to require user authentication, he said that he didn't want to compete with Microsoft. I didn't know at the time that Microsoft would become a large investor. It seems now that for Facebook, Inc., taking that investment has come at a price, which may be minuscule by comparison in monetary terms, but is still real. We're still desperately in need of a reliable messaging system that works, which I think probably means that it needs to be closed.
Aaron
Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era
Maybe instead of retribution for your friends stupidity you should try educating them.
I've only received a few of these wall post spams on Facebook, then again I only allow a select few to be my friends.
Anyone have a link that describes how a Facebook account get compromised in easy to understand terms? You know something we can pass on to our less technologically inclined friends should this happen to them.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
I have been suing spammers for a few years. Actually I sued the companies that were advertised the spammers, and paid the spammers. Some companies that have been sued have taken steps to terminate the 'affiliates' that were sending the spam.
Lately, it seems less effective. But, if more people started suing spammers, and the companies that hire them, that violate the law it dry up the marketplace for spammers.
One company, Deniro Marketing who runs amateurmatch.com, went as far as lying to the Court and then having the Wayback Machine delete any traces of the evidence when called on it.
Another company, I sued 3 times and obtained 3 default judgments, collected over $200k on the first two. Of course they claim that even though I seized money from the accounts, they didn't know anything about the lawsuits. Another person I know collected over $100k from them. Recently, in the last suit, the Defendants were able to vacate the judgment and be permitted to file an answer. I have seized several of their domain names to prevent them from selling them. Defendants counsel have been lying through their teeth and playing games -- but what can you expect from a spammer's lawyer.
I'll have to start putting up the details of this lawsuit. But I have details of the others on my web site.
--
http://www.barbieslapp.com/spam
So many spammers to sue, so little time.
Fight Spammers!
Speaking of spam, there seems to be a flood of moderator spam tagging everyone as troll today, I sure would like to take them to court.
Isn't hauling abusive Moderators into court a little extreme? To avoid criticism they should.... oh, I see what you did there. ;-)
I'm willing to go as far as to say that I bet 90% of the spam that ends up in the inboxes at social network sites is more than likely a phishing endeavor designed to steal some thing from you. Albeit your money, time, or sensitive personal information.
No one can sanely make the comparison between junk paper mail and spam emails any more. Junk paper mail was never primarily designed to steal any thing from you and is generally benign in nature. It's just advertising.
On the other hand, spam emails have been the motivation of criminally minded individuals for the last 10 plus years. Due to the light handed approach to penalizing these con artists, they've been allowed to take it to any extreme they see fit.
I rank these guys in the same category as domain squatters.
Hang 'em high, judges.
Then you could go as far as saying that TV spams your vision with Cars, medicines, insurance, cellphones, ISPs, etc, adds, which is certainly true.
This issue has nothing to do with man/women differences nor the target audience. The difference between spam and "regular" adds is that spam kicks into your personal communication ways, like your e-mail and even your regular mail, without you wanting it there and for no particular reason.
Of course you can ask why there are so many penis enlargement spam mails on your Inbox (at some point I was beginning to think that someone thought MY penis was too short...), and that probably has more to do with a "socio-economical study" of the people who are willing to click on just about any link. I mean those kids that spend their whole life on the computer gaming or just doing nothing in cyber-particular. They're usually male, aren't they? Aren't we?
Another difference is the fact that on TV or magazines or whatever mass-communication device, it's the company that runs the device the one that includes the adds. In spam, you have hotmail working it's ass off to give you (or try...) a decent service and then you have those who take advantage of it and, well... spam.
They're not within their rights. See the "user conduct" section of the Facebook terms of use.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!