Identity Theft News

ID theft alleged in notice of Tagged.com lawsuit

Friday, July 10, 2009

In announcing his intent to sue the social networking site Tagged.com for deceptive marketing and invasion of privacy, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said the company stole the address books and identities of millions of people in a spam campaign to lure new members.

According to Cuomo, Tagged disguised email solicitations to make them appear as if they were coming from a personal contact that had posted photos. When users would go to the site to see the photos, the company would "illegally gain access to their personal email contacts to send more fraudulent invitations," Cuomo charged.

Cuomo said Tagged's registration campaign was the online equivalent of breaking into somebody's home and stealing their address book.

On the Tagged blog, the company said yesterday that it is "disheartened" by Cuomo's charges.

"Identify theft and invasion of privacy are very serious allegations and it is not accurate to portray Tagged, or any other social network, in this regard," the blog said.

Tagged said it discontinued its new registration system after receiving complaints from users and acknowledged "some were confused and accidentally agreed to invite their friends."ADNFCR-1765-ID-19259842-ADNFCR

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