Comments on: Tagged.com Spam? Phishing? Nice Guys? My Personal Story http://foolswisdom.com/tagged-com-spam-phishing-nice-guys/ A fool and his blog are soon parted. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:43:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha By: Luitgard http://foolswisdom.com/tagged-com-spam-phishing-nice-guys/comment-page-1/#comment-239693 Luitgard Wed, 30 Sep 2009 03:13:49 +0000 http://foolswisdom.com/?p=2021#comment-239693 Tagged.com not only does spamming, they use sock puppets (fake IDs) and astrotrufing (fake "grass roots" support) to flood any forum that is justly critical of tagged.com with simple minded posts in support of tagged.com. These posts are all made within a few minutes of each other and have a suspiciously similar style. Consider yourself fortunate they overlooked you. So why suspect Tseng and tagged.com of such fraud? The facts are as follows: 1) Tagged.com was named the "World's most annoying Web site" by Time magazine for the scope of the latest barrage of fraudlent spam e-mail . As you mention, the NY State Attorney General has filed suit against tagged.com for it fraudulent practices. 2) Greg Tseng has a history of fraudulent e-mail campaigns on the Internet. Do a search on his name and crushlink, an e-mail scam from back in 2002 wherein people were sent fake e-mails that said, "Someone has a crush on you". To find out who it was, you had to give clushlink over 20 pingable e-mail addresses, which would then all receive an e-mail telling them "Someone has a crush on you". These e-mail addresses harvested under false pretenses were then sold to spammers. 3) Later, in 2004 I believe, his company paid a $900,000 fine for fraudulent spamming for FreeFlixTix. Tseng is a serial fraud and spammer with a track record of bad behavior that stretches over seven years and three separate companies. That Reid Hoffman, Raj Kapoor & Allen Morgan would be involved with him speaks ill of them. Either they have not exercised due diligence before forming their associations, or their ethics are appallingly lapse. Tagged.com not only does spamming, they use sock puppets (fake IDs) and astrotrufing (fake “grass roots” support) to flood any forum that is justly critical of tagged.com with simple minded posts in support of tagged.com. These posts are all made within a few minutes of each other and have a suspiciously similar style. Consider yourself fortunate they overlooked you. So why suspect Tseng and tagged.com of such fraud? The facts are as follows: 1) Tagged.com was named the “World’s most annoying Web site” by Time magazine for the scope of the latest barrage of fraudlent spam e-mail . As you mention, the NY State Attorney General has filed suit against tagged.com for it fraudulent practices. 2) Greg Tseng has a history of fraudulent e-mail campaigns on the Internet. Do a search on his name and crushlink, an e-mail scam from back in 2002 wherein people were sent fake e-mails that said, “Someone has a crush on you”. To find out who it was, you had to give clushlink over 20 pingable e-mail addresses, which would then all receive an e-mail telling them “Someone has a crush on you”. These e-mail addresses harvested under false pretenses were then sold to spammers. 3) Later, in 2004 I believe, his company paid a $900,000 fine for fraudulent spamming for FreeFlixTix. Tseng is a serial fraud and spammer with a track record of bad behavior that stretches over seven years and three separate companies. That Reid Hoffman, Raj Kapoor & Allen Morgan would be involved with him speaks ill of them. Either they have not exercised due diligence before forming their associations, or their ethics are appallingly lapse.

]]> By: Lloyd http://foolswisdom.com/tagged-com-spam-phishing-nice-guys/comment-page-1/#comment-231924 Lloyd Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:47:12 +0000 http://foolswisdom.com/?p=2021#comment-231924 Good points Hailin. I think one of the challenges is that our email address books includes a lot more than just our friends -- particularly when, for example, gmail automatically adds anyone that you've emailed. And my email contacts expectations are a little different than contacts on a social networking site. Email contacts don't expect (or want) invites to other social networking sites. By limiting the number of people you can invite from email contacts at one time -- and better yet, not having all the email addresses directly exposed in the first place -- it is a better experience for everyone. This is what I recommend Google do in <a href="http://foolswisdom.com/gmail-responsible-too/" rel="nofollow">Gmail’s Opportunity to Help Protect Against Tagged.com Mistake, Spam, and Phishing</a>. Good points Hailin. I think one of the challenges is that our email address books includes a lot more than just our friends — particularly when, for example, gmail automatically adds anyone that you’ve emailed. And my email contacts expectations are a little different than contacts on a social networking site. Email contacts don’t expect (or want) invites to other social networking sites.

By limiting the number of people you can invite from email contacts at one time — and better yet, not having all the email addresses directly exposed in the first place — it is a better experience for everyone. This is what I recommend Google do in Gmail’s Opportunity to Help Protect Against Tagged.com Mistake, Spam, and Phishing.

]]> By: Dr Hailin http://foolswisdom.com/tagged-com-spam-phishing-nice-guys/comment-page-1/#comment-231916 Dr Hailin Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:37:04 +0000 http://foolswisdom.com/?p=2021#comment-231916 It seems many other social networks including Facebook has adopted the approach to search through user's email contacts, but they are not as aggressive as Tagged.com. I think providing a choice before "do you want to invite your friends to join ?" and the default opt-out unless user clicks checkbox to select contacts is acceptable. It seems many other social networks including Facebook has adopted the approach to search through user’s email contacts, but they are not as aggressive as Tagged.com. I think providing a choice before “do you want to invite your friends to join ?” and the default opt-out unless user clicks checkbox to select contacts is acceptable.

]]> By: Gmail Opportunity to Help Protect Against Tagged.com Mistake, Spam, and Phishing < A Fool’s Wisdom http://foolswisdom.com/tagged-com-spam-phishing-nice-guys/comment-page-1/#comment-230736 Gmail Opportunity to Help Protect Against Tagged.com Mistake, Spam, and Phishing < A Fool’s Wisdom Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:37:11 +0000 http://foolswisdom.com/?p=2021#comment-230736 [...] A Fool’s Wisdom A fool and his blog are soon parted. < Tagged.com Spam? Phishing? Nice Guys? My Personal Story [...] [...] A Fool’s Wisdom A fool and his blog are soon parted. < Tagged.com Spam? Phishing? Nice Guys? My Personal Story [...]

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