Tagged.com Fires Back At Cuomo’s Lawsuit
by Tim Manni
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that his office intends to sue the social networking site www.Tagged.com for “deceptive email marketing practices and invasion of privacy.”
Back on June 8 we warned our readers to be aware of the email scam that was invading millions of consumers’ inboxes. The email read that the sender would like to share photos with you via the website “Tagged.com”. Concerns arose when the senders began complaining that they had never sent the emails. Both the senders and those whom received the emails immediately suspected that their email addresses had been compromised.
However, www.Tagged.com’s CEO Greg Tseng says that the email addresses were not compromised, and that the emails were inadvertently sent by those with Tagged accounts. In a Tagged.com blog post Tseng wrote, “Tagged has not ‘raided’ email address books, ’stolen identities’ or ’spammed’ millions of people.” Tseng goes on to explain how the site’s previous registration process allowed its users to import their email address book, but “some members complained that they had inadvertently elected to send invitations to all the contacts they had uploaded.”
The CEO said that after hearing the wave of user complaints, the site altered the registration process to fix the problem.
“From this feedback we learned that, simply put, it was too easy for people to quickly go through the registration process and unintentionally invite their friends to join them on Tagged.”
“Upon receiving complaints, we stopped using this new registration process. 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.”
Tagged has provided a series of screen shots that help explain the issue at hand. Tseng said that his website fixed the problem before Mr. Cuomo’s office decided to take action, and that they “are very confident that once the Attorney General considers all of the facts, we will be able to resolve this matter amicably.”
Do you believe Tagged.com?
(hat tip: The Consumerist)
