Twitter, as well as many of its users no doubt, has had enough of spammers and has decided to send a message by taking legal action with the assistance of law enforcement to bring it to a stop once and for all.
On Thursday, the company filed a suit against five web tools and providers that make it easier to spam people on Twitter.
In a statement, Twitter said that “Twitter now has more than 140 million active users, and we continue to grow at a record pace. As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers. Even though spam is a small fraction of the content you can find on Twitter, we know just how distracting it can be.”
The lawsuit names three separate firms namely TweeAttacks, TweetAdder, and TweetBuddy as well as two individuals James Lucero (of justinlover.info) and Garland Harris (of troption.com). Each of them are allegedly in violation of The Twitter Rules by selling software that encourages firms to spam the service.
The statement also notes that “œTaking legal action sends a clear message to all would-be spammers that there are serious and costly consequences to violating our Rules with their annoying and potentially malicious activity.“
Of the five targeted tool providers, one, namely TweetAttacks, has already been removed from the web.
TweetAdder offers “œ6 Laser Targeted, GLOBAL Twitter User Search Tools“ which automate a range of Twitter functionality, such as searching for specific tweets, retweeting tweets that mention keywords and following Twitter users based on a range of criteria.
TweetBuddy functions in a similar way and provides a paid-for Twitter app that it says can “œincrease sales and save time“. The software includes a number of options for automating actions.
Twitter is not the first social network to get the law on its side to combat spammers. Earlier this year, Facebook and the Attorney General of Washington state teamed up to file two lawsuits against “œclickjackers“ who worked to spread spam on Facebook. Back in 2009, Google fought “œGoogle money“ schemes and the following year targetedillegal online prescription pharmacies.
View Twitter’s spam filing here.
Source: The Next Web, Mashable
