Blog for hpHosts, and whatever else I feel like writing about ....

Saturday 11 July 2009

Tagged.com being sued - and about bloody time too!

Tagged.com, well known for quite some time, for using the same malicious tactics as a few other like sites I could mention, are finally to be sued by the New York Attorney General

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo charged social networking site Tagged.com Thursday with spamming and stealing identities from 60 million of its users by sending illegal e-mails that raided their personal contact lists.

Cuomo served Tagged with a notice of intent, announcing that his office planned to sue the social networking site for concocting an illegal scheme to bolster traffic numbers and reel in millions of new users.

"This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people," Cuomo said in a statement. "Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their e-mail contacts for Tagged's unethical -- and illegal -- behavior."

San Francisco-based Tagged.com boasts 80 million users and touts itself as the third largest social networking site after Facebook and MySpace.

According to the notice of intent, Cuomo charged that Tagged tricked most of those users into handing over access to their e-mail contact lists. The company then used the contact lists to send out promotional spam that appeared as if it was coming from a personal contact. In actuality, the fraudulent e-mails were sent by Tagged from pilfered contact lists, the New York Attorney General's Office said.


Read more
http://www.crn.com/security/218401533;jsessionid=2HQKNHDMVIQC2QSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN

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