14 DAY TRIAL // San Francisco-based social network Tagged is facing a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo “for deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy,” as the statement put forward by his office reads. Tagged has been heavily criticized in the past for its practices and it may finally have caught the attention of law officials.
Signing up for Tagged would require you to fill in your email address as well as the password for it allowing the company to access your account. With the credentials the site would scrape your contact list and send emails to all of the people in it. The emails would be coming from the users’ own address and would be made to sound as if they were inviting their friends to the service. These practices drew heavy critics and may prove to have been illegal.
“This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people,” Attorney General Cuomo said. “Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologize to all their email contacts for Tagged’s unethical – and illegal – behavior.” The attorney general believes that as much as 60 million emails of this type may have been sent and intends to block Tagged from using the tactics as well as fine the company.
In the company's defense, CEO Greg Tseng issued his own statement claiming that the allegations were false and exaggerated and that at no point had his company acted illegally. “Today’s announcement by New York Attorney General Cuomo is disheartening. Identity theft and invasion of privacy are very serious allegations and it is not accurate to portray Tagged, or any other social network, in this regard,” Tseng said. He also noted the fact that the social network had stopped using the practices after a large number of complaints but he insisted that the users gave their consent when allowing the company to use their email and invite their friends.