He promised users a raunchy video of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez

Nov 20, 2013 13:37 GMT  ·  By

Facebook has filed a lawsuit against a man it accuses of being responsible for many of the scams that have been making the rounds on the social media platform over the past years, including one that promised a raunchy video featuring Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez.

According to Courthouse News, Facebook says the spammer – Christopher Peter Tarquini, of Malton, New Jersey – has been launching such scams since 2008 with the aid of a script that he designed himself. Victims of his schemes were led to marketing websites that earned him a commission each time someone visited them.

In addition, the bogus posts were also published on THE victims’ timelines in order to lure in more unsuspecting internauts.

“When Facebook users clicked on the messages, the messages (and suggestive images associates with those messages) were automatically shared with the users' Facebook friends, and the browsers of the users who clicked on the messages were redirected to marketing websites that paid Tarquini and his associates a commission for the referral traffic,” Facebook noted in its complaint.

Facebook claims it has spent a lot of resources on trying to track down the spammer. The company says Tarquini’s actions caused over $5,000 (€3,700) in damage during a one-year period.

Interestingly, Facebook said it sent the suspect a cease-and-desist letter back in March. At the time, Tarquini allegedly responded, admitting that he and others used a script he had developed to redirect victims of the Bieber/Gomez scheme to a website that was not associated with the social media network.

The company alleges that the spammer’s actions “tainted and continue to taint the Facebook experience for Facebook users.”