MySpace.com announced on January 22 that they filed suit against Scott Richter for violations of state and federal laws including the CAN-SPAM Act and California’s anti-spam statute.
The suit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, seeks a permanent injunction barring Richter and his affiliated companies from the MySpace site in addition to unspecified monetary damages.
According to a press release from MySpace, their suit alleges that between July and December 2006, Richter and his associates arranged for millions of spam “bulletins” to be sent from MySpace users’ accounts without their knowledge.
The lawsuit further claims that Richter either phished MySpace accounts himself or acquired a list of phished accounts to launch spam campaigns.
Media Breakaway, LLC, where Scott Richter is CEO, has responded to the MySpace press release with their own announcement that they are retaining Pete Wellborn to represent the company with regard to the MySpace complaint
“We are very pleased that Pete Wellborn has agreed to represent Scott Richter and Media Breakaway in the lawsuit filed by MySpace,” said Steve Richter, President and General Counsel of Media Breakaway. “Pete’s substantial background in Internet law and extensive knowledge of the industry, including successful representation of several Internet Service Providers in cases against spammers, makes him the ideal person to represent the company in this matter.”
Steve Richter also stated, “At this time, the only information we have regarding this lawsuit comes from MySpace’s press release earlier this week. We obviously deny the allegations made in the press release.”