Twitter takes legal action against spamming websites

Washington, April 7 (ANI): Twitter has filed complaints against five websites on charges of creating tools for spamming and barraging its users with anything from Viagra ads to virus-ridden links.

The websites are paid to help Twitter account gain followers, but they often take control of an account, known as bot, that follows or sends automated tweets to real users in the hope that some might follow the bot back or click through links the bot has sent out.

According to The Telegraph, Twitter reacting to the illegal practise said in a blog posted, "As our engineers continue to combat spammers with strong safeguards and technical efforts, today we're adding another weapon to our arsenal: the law".

The defendants, TweetAttacks, TweetAdder, TweetBuddy, James Lucero of justinlover.info and Garland E Harris of troption.com, are listed in the suit filed in the U.S. Federal Court in San Francisco. They could not be reached for comment.

There are about 140 million active users on Twitter. As the number of user has grown, so have bots and spam, emerged as a problem that Twitter fears could disturb the online conversation and annoy users.

Taking legal action against spammers is not a new approach, in recent years, both Facebook and Google have taken spammers to court with success.

In its blog posted, Twitter also noted its recent acquisition of Dasient, a web security company that represents a part of Twitter's "larger investment in security and fraud protection," The Telegraph reported. (ANI)