Scott Richter is a name that most people in MySpace weren’t too happy with. This is largely due to the copious amounts of SPAM sent to members through various MySpace accounts Richter co-opted by a process known as “phishing” and directed users to the website ConsumerPromotionCenter.com. Wiki defines “Phishing” as “… an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.” The result was, according to MySpace, a settlement worth nearly $6 million dollars.
“We respect the decision of the arbitrator, and we’re not going to appeal it,” said Steven Richter, Scott Richter’s father and chief counsel of the company Media Breakaway. “We’re going to pay the money (the arbitrator) awarded.”
This is the latest in a series of judgments won by MySpace in an effort to stem the tide of spam. Earlier this year, MySpace was awarded a $230 million anti-spam judgment against spammers Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines. And as in that case, MySpace has declared victory in a statement saying “This award reflects MySpace’s continued momentum and holistic approach to ridding the site of spammers and phishers … We will continue to do our part in cleansing the Internet of this invasive onslaught of spam.”
And while they can point to that nearly quarter billion dollar judgement as proof their efforts to protect their members from spam is indeed working, it seems to actually just be another revenue stream for a company who only had two staff members dedicated to fight such phishing activities that Richter is accused of. Now, MySpace claims they have a dedicated staff of forty for that purpose.
Addition, while at first, it seems to be a victory over the man known as the “Spam King.” In fact, the tables are the other way around since Richter won a judgment to have the civic case taken over by an arbitrator, rather than submit to a court trial he was sure to lose. And according to Richter, the $6 million dollar award to MySpace was actually 95% less than what was original asked for by MySpace and as such, represents the cost of doing business in the surprisingly lucrative world of Spamming. A cost that Richter is rather used to paying.
In 2005 Richter was forced to pay $7 million to Microsoft Corp. after similar charges were lobbied by Redmond against Richter’s former spam company Optinrealbig.com.
What’s interesting is that while Richter was busy shelling out seven figures in settlements for what some see as unethical and perhaps flat out illegal internet behavior, he was actually removed from antispam organization Spamhaus’ list of known spammers that same year.
In addition, while MySpace claims that such headline grabbing judgments show that their efforts are taking hold, it does little to stop the flood of porn spam messages that members deal with on a daily basis. I guess they need to create an anti-porn department as well.