Facebook sues to stop spam
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Three men are being sued by social networking site Facebook, which alleges that they used phishing to gain access to the user accounts of others and used the hijacked accounts to send spam messages, according to CNET security correspondent Elinor Mills.
Mills writes that the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in a federal court in California, alleges that Ryan Shimeall, Philip Porembski, and Jeremi Fisher perpetrated "at least four" spam campaigns over the course of the past two years, including one for a spurious Google campaign and another pushing what Mills describes as a "colon cleanser."
Facebook recently won a similar lawsuit against so-called "spam king" Sanford Wallace, gaining a $711 million judgment against Wallace for his activities on the social network, though Wallace is not expected to be able to pay the damages in full. Facebook and other social networks have been targeted more and more frequently by spam and malware.
In addition to Facebook, Microsoft and Google have both been more willing to send in the lawyers of late to help combat cyber criminals, signaling a possible policy shift in the field of IT litigation.
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