14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is determined to make a stand against the scammers plaguing the social network in recent months and has filed lawsuits against three of them, for a start.
The complaints were filed against two individuals named Steven Richter and Jason Swan, both of Long Island, New York, and a Canadian company called Max Bounty, Inc., for violating the CAN-SPAM act.
"This week, in a U.S. federal court in San Jose, California, we filed three lawsuits alleging violations of our terms and applicable law by defendants attempting to trick people on Facebook into signing up for mobile subscriptions and sending spam to their friends," the Facebook Security team announces.
This description suggests that defendants were responsible for launching some of the survey scams, which have become a daily occurrence on Facebook.
These attacks usually start with enticing spam messages that lure users into clicking on malicious links, which lead to pages hosted on Facebook or external sites.
The pages ask users to give rogue applications permission to post on their wall and access their data or tricks them into distributing the spam messages manually.
In most cases, users are also asked to complete one of several surveys or offers in order to access the promised content. During these surveys they are deceived into subscribing to premium rate services.
For every victim tricked into signing up, the scammers receives a hefty commission through affiliate marketing schemes.
CNET reports that Jason Swan is accused of running 27 fake profiles, 13 fake pages, as well as 7 rogue applications, while Steven Richter is allegedly responsible for creating 40 fake profiles and 43 fake pages.
Meanwhile, Facebook claims that Cost Per Action (CPA) marketing company MaxBounty, misused its logo in deceptive advertising campaigns promoting free gift cards, iPads and other products.
Facebook promises that this is only the beginning of its crackdown on scams. "Stay tuned as our push against spammers and scammers escalates over the next month, year and beyond. We have other actions pending, and there will be more to come," the company says.