Phishing emails occasionally make it through spam filters, and sometimes, they even look genuine. So Yahoo is trying to protect the recipients (and its own reputation) by suing "Yahoo! Lottery Spammers" who use its name in hoaxes.
The company filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City, according to a statement. Yahoo cited the Federal Trademark Act, the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, and several state laws as being on its side.
John Kremer, the vice president of Yahoo Mail, also said, "Yahoo! is 100% committed to protecting our users from fraudulent e-mail messages and this lawsuit sends a clear message to spammers. We are going after individuals who have attempted to negatively impact the e-mail experience for consumers across the Internet. Through our continued litigation efforts, our top goal and priority is to further protect Yahoo! Mail users and the public from this type of fraudulent activity."
A legal victory may not, in a practical sense, close the case - we've seen spammers survive big fines before. This development at least falls into the "nice thought" category, though.
As a related gesture, Yahoo's offering anti-spam tips through a Yahoo Mail site. And here's a word to the wise: official Yahoo communications will always include exclamation points after the company's name. Even CEO Jerry Yang, who doesn't capitalize anything, follows this rule, whereas spammers (and lazy writers) often don't.
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Comments
Yahoo needs better spam
Yahoo needs better spam filters and as well as some sort of staff that would check the activities of emails.
Yahoo Cracks too hard on spam
This is bunk! ..... I dont like spam as much as the next person, but when my Bills,Statements, Netflix, emails all goto my spam box. while passing viagra and other spam mail to my inbox Yahoo has a lot to learn in the spam department. I really dont like checking my yshoo mail every day to finf important email stuck in my spam box. I mean when Netflix sends me an email it goes directly in my spam box, When I mark it Not spam, My next movie ends up there as well.while Viagra and Hi Mr Huges Did you know..... or HSUD is going to make it Big buy now! which is a stock spammer. hoping you'll buy it to make the stock go up and then selling his 10000 shares he boght at $0.01/per share and selling them at $.25 after every ones bought it.
Which is another spam type email that yahooo passes along to my. I can not believe my ATT bill is spam while Viagra gets passed through.
It's time for a crack-down
The Internic needs to step in and crack down on this. They have allowed spammers and porn proveyers to ruin a really good thing (the Internet). Simple rules, enforced, would put a stop to all of it, just like the anti-junk-fax laws have put an end to junk faxes. The problem is that the government can't enforce spam laws, they need to be enforced by Internic.
RE: A for Intentions; F for Success
I have to agree with the previous post entitled "A for Intentions; F for Success". Well over 70% of all financial scam spam comes from nigeria, and several "sting" operations have been aired on MSNBC. Interesting and informative, but pretty useless in terms of actually having an effect.
All we can do is keep spreading the word, keep telling our kids, and grandparents, if in doubt, delete it out!
Fight Spam
I agree with Carlos, the key is education. Spammers have no values or morals. They spend all of their time working on new ways to get their spam in my mailbox. Everyone needs to do there part to get rid of these morons. The best thing we can do is never ever click on one of their links and just delete, delete, delete...
Good work Yahoo!
I been getting alot of spam from people who try to con me that I have strike a lottery. It happened in my gmail. All of them disguise as from a genuine source. Spam is a pest! I hope the big boys will follow yahoo. I know it is difficult to get rid spam - at least put them behind bar and you get rid one already!
Thank You
I just want to thank you, I get several e-mails daly, most of the do say I have won the Microft/Yahoo Lottery. I must I do respond to them with a few choice words and then delete the trash, only to find there are more in my e-mail. I really hope the other companies will follow siut and do something about this problem. Is there a site where we can forward this crap?
Mcafee did some recent
Mcafee did some recent research on the origin of spam e-mail. They found that %92 of spam originated from the USA. Just real stupid ones"my grandmother died and she wants to give u her money" comes from the third world contries.
Spam
I just dont know where they get the time to send these spam e mails?
Got to go now!
John
A for Intentions; F for Success
Since the worst of these miscreants are likely in some third world country, Yahoo stands little chance of succeeding through litigation or prosecution.
The only way to stop these people is to ban their domains and IPs from ever entering the cyber stream the minute they are identified, and if a legitimate host allows such exploitation, they suffer the consequences.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!
fight against spam
I think is very difficult win this war. Spammers are thinking about spam filters all day. it is their job. The better solution is education people about this practices.
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