Social Network Site Tagged.com Sued For Harvesting Emails

Back in June, our post on exercising caution on social networking sites included information about Tagged.com, a social networking site that harvested email addresses from users’ email address books and automatically sent out unsolicited emails to those addresses.

Now, Tagged.com is the target of two lawsuits, both in connection to the site’s alleged email-harvesting practice. New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo filed the first lawsuit in July, and in a press release, accused the company of stealing “the address books and identities of millions of people.” Cuomo was joined in his legal crusade against Tagged.com earlier this month when two California women also filed suit against the site.

“Tagged harvested millions of email addresses from the email address books of consumers. Then, using these consumers’ email account credentials, Tagged sent unsolicited advertisements to the harvested email addresses, making the messages appear as if they were invitations to join Tagged sent by persons known to the recipients,” according to the complaint filed by Miriam Slater of Santa Barbara and Sara Golden of Los Angeles.

Of course, Tagged.com CEO Greg Tseng disagrees with allegations that the company harvested email addresses and claims the unsolicited emails were part of a “new registration process, based on our popular Tags photo-sharing feature” that was tested in early June. “Upon receiving complaints, we stopped using this new registration process,” Tseng wrote in a company blog post. “We then emailed all new members who had sent invitations, explained that some people had unintentionally invited their contacts, and offered information on how to manage their contacts and, if they wanted, how to cancel their membership.”

How the lawsuits will affect Tagged and other social networking sites is unclear. But the newest lawsuit underscores the need for caution and prudence when it comes to signing up for a new social networking site. VetNetwok can help your veterinary hospital navigate the world of social media, from setting up a blog on your veterinary hospital’s website to creating Twitter and Facebook accounts for you. Call us today at 800-564-4215 to get started.