Twitter launches spam crackdown with federal lawsuit

Twitter has taken aim at five of its most troublesome spam enablers filing a lawsuit in federal court last Thursday. This is the company's latest effort to crack down on mass-produced junk tweets.

Defendants listed in the lawsuit include Philippines-based JL4 Web Solutions (referred to in the suit as "TweetAttacks") and Tennessee-based Skootle Corporation (referred to as "TweetBuddy"; "TweetAdder"), as well as individuals Garland Harris and James Lucero.

Twitter claims to have spent as much as $700,000 fighting spam produced by the five parties listed in the lawsuit.

"With this suit, we're going straight to the source," Twitter shared in a recent blog post. "By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter."

No more than a day after the suit was filed in San Francisco, several of the targeted websites had gone offline, including TweetBuddy, TweetAttacks and a website operated by Lucero. TweetAdder's website, as well as several of Harris' sites, remained operational.

The lawsuit aims to deter people from creating spamming tools, including "software that latches on to trending topics and starts injecting irrelevant marketing messages into the mix," reports CNN.

Twitter filed the lawsuit just three months after acquiring Internet security company Dasient back in January, a deal that sought to bring new technology into the social network's battle against spammers.

According to Performics, a company that monitors brands on social platforms, Twitter sees "significantly more spam" than Facebook and Google.

"You have to eliminate all the irrelevant content to see what people are really saying," said spokesman Dan Malachowski. "On Twitter, a lot of it is irrelevant spam."

Along with acquiring Dasient, Twitter revealed that its engineers recently launched a new slate of anti-spam measures "to more aggressively suspend a new type of @ mention spam." The company has also begun using its t.co link shortener, which reportedly tracks tweets while aiming to disable links to malicious content such a malware.

And despite what Thursday's lawsuit might indicate, Twitter's anti-spamming efforts appear to working.

"Twitter has gotten a lot better over the last six months," shares Michael Hussey, CEO at PeekYou, a search company that closely monitors Twitter's spam. "I think they're more quickly detecting and deleting lots of spam."

But the anti-spam efforts still have a long way to go.

"You can go on eBay today and type 'twitter followers' or 'buy twitter followers,' and you can pump up your number," said Hussey. "Those are great examples of completely spam accounts."

(CNN photo)