New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo plans to file a lawsuit against social-networking Internet site Tagged.com, accusing the privately held company of using deceptive email marketing practices and invasion of privacy.
"This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people," Cuomo said.
The lawsuit alleges that Tagged.com devised an illegal plan to attract new members and obtain their email addresses, which it then used to deliver tens of millions of spam emails between April and June.
Misleading emails were sent stating that Tagged members had posted private photos online for friends to view online. However, the recipients had to join Tagged to view the nonexistent photos, giving Tagged access to more personal email contacts that were used to send more fraudulent emails, the Attorney General's office alleged.
"This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books, and sending phony mail to all of an individual's personal contacts," Cuomo said. "We would never accept this behavior in the real world, and we cannot accept it online."
The suit aims to block the practice and seeks fines from the company. Tagged temporarily suspended the email marketing campaign in June in response to user complaints and criticism, but more than 60 million of the emails had been sent by that time, according to the Attorney General's office.
A Tagged.com spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
-By Tess Stynes, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2481; tess.stynes@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 09, 2009 12:57 ET (16:57 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
