Twitter Brings Internet Lawsuit Against Spammers

By Jeff Rosenfeld

Social media success Twitter is now taking measures to curb the amount of spam plaguing its service. After spending $700,000 in anti-spam efforts, Twitter is taking legal action by suing several companies and individuals that have developed and/or distributed software designed to facilitate abuse of the Twitter platform. Twitter has also named defendants who allegedly operate numerous automated Twitter accounts designed to trick Twitter users into clicking on links to illegitimate websites. The defendants named in the lawsuit are Skootle Corp., Web Solutions, Justin Clark dbaTweetbudyy.com, James Kester, Jayson Yanuaria, James Lucero, and Garland E. Harris.

In its complaint, Twitter alleges that its service has become an unwilling platform for several categories of abusive conduct, including unsolicited commercial email. Most significantly, Twitter users have received unsolicited tweets (known as spam tweets) from accounts created for specific purpose of sending such unsolicited tweets. Twitter asserted four claims for relief and seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

Twitter filed its lawsuit on April 5, 2012 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and the case has been assigned to the Honorable Laurel Beeler.

Twitter is not the first social media company to address spam through legal channels. Companies such as Facebook and Google have also filed spam-related lawsuits based on the misuse of their social-networking services.

Spamming has become a genuine concern for all users of social media and mobile networks. Our firm of experienced Internet attorneys has extensive experience with Internet Law generally and Spam Law specifically.