MySpace has always offered a rich platform for small and large business to advertise with but several companies have had to face MySpace in court for their efforts. While co-founder Tom Anderson has been quoted encouraging promotion on MySpace, many users have taken this freedom too far. Be it from fake profiles or tidal waves of unsolicited messages the results are the same: degradation of the community and poor user experience.
The action action against “Spam King” Sanford Wallace is well known, but here are some other cases that went largely unnoticed in '06 and '07 (some resolved very recently):
1. What The Dilly LLC (filed: 01/06/06)
2. The Globe.com Inc. (filed: 08/25/06)
3. Anthony Lineberry (filed: 04/28/06)
Understandably MySpace would like to be the sole source for any advertisements displayed on the web site. With the recent msplinks upgrade to filter links posted to comments and messages, they are beginning to seriously address the long standing spam and phishing problems of the web site. Overall this will benefit the community but may affect the many companies who depend on traffic from their MySpace profiles. Those that maintain ethical and professional promotions should remain unscathed and continue to benefit from a MySpace presence for the time being.
Bottom line: although MySpace is frequently accused of being a spam haven, they're making serious moves to tackle the problem.
Below is a selection of documents relating to the cases. The date applies to when that document or motion was filed and may not be the initial filing date.
MySpace vs What the Dilly
MySpace vs The Globe.com
MySpace vs Anthony Lineberry