MySpace.com, which is owned by News Corp., has filed a lawsuit Friday in Los Angeles against the self-proclaimed "Spam King" for allegedly blasting the portal with spam between July and December 2006. The suit alleges Richter obtained a list of compromised accounts or used phishing to harvest log-ins and passwords. MySpace is a frequent target for spammers because of the easiness of mass sending "bulletins" from a single account.
MySpace seeks a permanent injunction to bar Scott Richter, who runs Optinrealbig.com (e-mail marketing company in Westminster, Colorado), and his affiliates from using the popular social networking site. MySpace also accused Richter of not complying with the federal CAN-SPAM act (which he agreed to obey after previous suits) and California"s antispam law. Richter has had legal problems before: he has fought over spam with the state of New York (settled for $50,000) as well as Microsoft (settled for $7 million).