Jan 23 2007

Myspace Suing 50 Affiliates Seeking Minimum 20 million In Damages

By Jeremy Schoemaker 32 comments

Scott Richter is telling people here at Affiliate Summit that not only is MySpace suing him but also they are suing over 50 other companies AND affiliates.

Jamie said on January 23rd, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Any paperwork that backs this up?

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martin Edic said on January 23rd, 2007 at 3:56 pm

You know there is an incredible short term bias going on here- this guy is nothing but a spammer and this kind of thing is wrecking things for most of the people pursuing a livelihood on the web. Spammers go for fast bucks while leaving behind a scorched landscape incapable of supporting life…

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Leroy Brown said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm

Now it’s getting ugly… has there every been a case like this before? I haven’t heard of affiliates themselvse getting sued…

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ibusiness said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:27 pm

OMG. Is myspace trying set some warning to spammers, myspace marketers?

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Christine said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm

I wonder if they’re going after affiliate that spammed comments on myspace account with “paid survey opportunities”.

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King Chris said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm

The funny part is that this was going on since MySpace started.

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MarkZZ said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm

Anymore on this story anywhere?

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Jason Bailey said on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Again - lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Scott says all kinds of things. But until we see some paper work that says that i think i’ll save the dime I may have otherwise used to call a lawyer.
The only other specifics i have seen in naming names was in a ClickZ article (and I read ALL the articles I could find).
“co-conspirators Marat Nigmatzyanov, Yevgeniy Leschinskiy and other unnamed collaborators”
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624642

Seems those are just specific affiliates who I suppose were going hard.

Anyway… the facts will all come out in the next few days.

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King said on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:22 pm

Makes one wonder why craigslist hasn’t done this yet

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ToddW said on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:37 pm

CL: Remove’s the shit pretty quick from what I’ve seen… maybe not though ?

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Eric Lander said on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:57 pm

They’re making these moves in an effort to clean up their act. I can’t find solid proof of numbers of affiliates being sued, but I know they’ve gone after others…

From: TechNewsWorld

The company has already settled several earlier lawsuits, including one against the distributor of an automated Internet Free How-To Guide for Small Business Web Strategies - from domain name selection to site promotion. bot that sent spam to MySpace users, and a federal suit that was lodged against an affiliate program being promoted via spamming.
In addition, the company sued TGLO/The Globe for allegedly spamming MySpace users and violating the site's terms of use agreement. It has also helped law enforcement agencies pursue criminal action against other spammers.

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chuck said on January 23rd, 2007 at 6:31 pm

How the hell is this alike craigs at all? Last I checked, people weren’t phishing craigslist accounts were they? Craigslist has their spam problem pretty well taken care of, and I’d honestly like to see someone get in trouble for posting free ads on a free classifieds site.

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Ian Robertson said on January 23rd, 2007 at 6:43 pm

In my opinion, I think Scott Richter deserves everything coming to him.

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Randy Ray said on January 23rd, 2007 at 6:53 pm

Suing them for what? Violating their terms and conditions wouldn’t be against the law would it? (I’m just guessing that’s what the reasoning is, but I don’t know.)

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CPA Affiliates said on January 23rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm

The fine will be paid and things will move on. I have a feeling all the people that spammed in big amounts made wayyyyyyy more than 20 million. But it will make a statement.

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jim said on January 23rd, 2007 at 9:06 pm

The big question is whether this little act will do anything more than scare off the multitude of pseudo-spammers because the big fish will still find a way to hide themselves and keep doing it.

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George said on January 24th, 2007 at 12:15 am

Myspace.com is Spam in its self and was created by spammers. I saw banner on there today “your our 1millionth hit click here for free laptop. Spam is what’s driving myspace. If you eliminated the people promoting there business, bands with friend adders, poker affiliates, you would be left with a bunch of teenagers with private profiles.

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ShoeMoney said on January 24th, 2007 at 8:24 am

If there was any news paper story then I would have linked that. For now its just what i said… he is telling people that at affiliate summit

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Cygnus said on January 24th, 2007 at 9:36 am

I think what they are trying to say is that he posted on the bulletins that he didn’t have access to; had they been his friends it’d be a simple TOS and the worst they could do is boot him off…just IMHO, but since I haven’t seen any legal workup, I’ll assume that their suit is more about the unauthorized use of the bulletins than the advertisements themselves.

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kansieo said on January 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am

I know they state “phishing” but is that the reason? Theoretically, I could create 9 bazillion different accounts (all appearing to be different people) and add gazillions of friends to send googols of bulletins and comments every day…and still not break any laws (to the best of my knowledge). I guess that might LOOK like phishing to a prosecutor and judge not savvy enough to look deeper…

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Geiger said on January 24th, 2007 at 9:45 am

It is probably easier to sue 50 and discourage thousands than it is to develop real anti-spam techniques.

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Dave said on January 24th, 2007 at 10:34 am

My Myspace acct was phished with a look alike login screen, however once I left the login screen my PC was plastered with spyware and pop ups. Later that day I went to check my bank acct online and was served a pop-up from this spyware asking for my bank login information. I didnt fall for it this time but it shows how crooked these people are and what they are after.

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Dino said on January 24th, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Yeah, honestly myspace should take that money and spend it on more anti-spam techniques on their system to better up the security at the same time.

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Spammen auf MySpace: Keine gute Idee - Adult Webmaster Blog said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:16 pm

[...] Spammen auf MySpace: Keine gute Idee Der Beitrag wurde am 23. Januar 2007 von Oliver Karthaus veröffentlicht Die Möglichkeit Bulletins mit Werbenachrichten über MySpace zu versenden, kennen sicher einiger von euch. Genau das mag MySpace aber wohl gar nicht mehr (verständlich) und so hat man laut einem Bericht von Shoemoney gleich 50 verschiedene Firmen und ihre Affiliates auf wenigstens 20 Millionen Dollar verklagt. Bislang konnte ich noch keinen Bericht finden, der diese Zahl bestätigt. In einem anderen Artikel geht es um das Netzwerk “CPA Empire”, welches ebenfalls von MySpace verklagt wird. MySpace scheint da ja jetzt wirklich in die Offensive zu gehen. Die waren ja auch zu lange in ihrem Dornrösschenschlaf. Am Ende gibt es bestimmt wieder Urteile in Millionenhöhe, die aber niemand bezahlen kann und wird. Abgelegt in Rechtliches | Tags: none –> [...]
Harry Maugans said on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:57 pm

MySpace Sues 20+ Ad Networks for Over $500 million…

Jon F (aojon.com), owner of WickedFire.com, one of the biggest affiliate (and sometimes borderline spam) communities online, just confirmed MySpace launching lawsuits against over 20 different affiliate-based spam companies. Most of the companies are …
CPA AFFILIATES » Myspace suing CPA Empire and others… said on January 23rd, 2007 at 7:06 pm

[...] But that’s not the biggest news, the rumors are circulating that many other CPA Networks (maybe even affiliates) may be getting a knock on thier door. With a letter from Myspace. Again this is just rumors but i am sure more will come to light over the next few weeks. Shoemoney made a post about it also. Read it Here. [...]
CPA Affiliate Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » MySpace hit Mr.OptInRealBig with $$$ lawsuit said on January 28th, 2007 at 2:15 am

[...] So anyway, I’ve been busy the past few days trying to modify and script and make it do a job for which it was never intended, never a good idea really, but it’s my justification for having missed mutterings over the past few days about looming Myspace actions in the ten$ of million$ of dollar$ regarding abuse of their user to user messaging system. The first thing I noticed was posted by Jon over at WickedFired and I’ve seen Shoemoney has mentioned it and now I check there’s a long thread about it at abestweb. [...]
Best CPA Network » Blog Archive » Myspace suing CPA Empire and others… said on November 4th, 2007 at 12:16 pm

[...] But that’s not the biggest news, the rumors are circulating that many other CPA Networks (maybe even affiliates) may be getting a knock on thier door. With a letter from Myspace. Again this is just rumors but i am sure more will come to light over the next few weeks. Shoemoney made a post about it also. Read it Here. [...]
Are Affiliates Responsible? « Kimkins And Other Affiliate Marketing Nightmares said on January 25th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

[...] are the affiliates off free and clear? Not according to myspace. Myspace is suing 50 affiliates seeking 20 million in damages. I think this is only the beginning. It appears that myspace is fed up with the spammers and [...]
Paykay.com - Affiliate program - Affiliate network - Affiliate marketing » Blog Archive » Myspace suing CPA Empire and others… said on March 29th, 2008 at 12:36 am

[...] But that’s not the biggest news, the rumors are circulating that many other CPA Networks (maybe even affiliates)?may be getting a knock on thier door. With a letter from Myspace.? Again this is just rumors but i am sure more will come to light over the next few weeks. Shoemoney made a post about it also. Read it Here. [...]
Paying Affiliate Program - Affiliate networks - Affiliate marketing - Afffiliate information - Affiliate Program » Blog Archive » Myspace suing CPA Empire and others… said on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:04 am

[...] But that’s not the biggest news, the rumors are circulating that many other CPA Networks (maybe even affiliates)?may be getting a knock on thier door. With a letter from Myspace.? Again this is just rumors but i am sure more will come to light over the next few weeks. Shoemoney made a post about it also. Read it Here. [...]
Best Affiliate Line » Blog Archive » Myspace suing CPA Empire and others… said on April 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 am

[...] But that’s not the biggest news, the rumors are circulating that many other CPA Networks (maybe even affiliates)?may be getting a knock on thier door. With a letter from Myspace.? Again this is just rumors but i am sure more will come to light over the next few weeks. Shoemoney made a post about it also. Read it Here. [...]