Twitter is often down due to relentless spam attacks.
Did you register, acquire or otherwise drool over a “twitter followers” domain?
It’s about time to rethink your marketing strategy, because Twitter will come onto you like a billion birds of a feather.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, five of Twitter’s most aggressive spammers are named as defendants. They used software and websites to follow trending topics on Twitter, latching onto them irrelevant goods and services.
This spamming method apparently didn’t sit well with Twitter, who is yet to become profitable from its enterprise.
Some of the websites named in Twitter’s lawsuit were TweetAttacks, TweetBuddy, and a site operated by the individuals James Lucero and Garland Harris, were already down. Another web site, TweetAdder, was still up, as were several of Harris’ sites.
According to Twitter, the company has spent more than $700,000 in its efforts to combat the defendants’ marketing attack and it’s seeking injunctions against each defendant as well as monetary damages.
More information at the Twitter blog.
As much as the writer of this may have had good intentions, this is absolutely ignorant. These companies are software developers, not “spammers”. Trying to eliminate spam is one thing.. but filing a lawsuit against software developers is another. This lawsuit is the wrong solution… but you can file a lawsuit against anyone for any reason. It doesn’t mean you will win the case. Any judge with common sense will recognize that Twitter (as an open source application) allows for others in this free country to develop software to work with Twitter (Ex:TweetBuddy, etc…). There is nothing wrong with developing a software that simply allows someone to automate everyday tasks that are a massive waste of time on Twitter. The average user could save several hours per week using this. It is important to fully recognize, these companies that have developed software are not the Spammers who abuse the “Twitter Rules”. It is the users of Twitter who spam people.. Therefore, Twitter is the company that enables spam, and anyone who has a Twitter account can spam people.. just like anyone with an email account can spam people. With this non-sense lawsuit, and way of thinking.. perhaps Twitter Members should also file a big lawsuit against Twitter for all the spam they have received because of Twitter’s software. Do you “follow” what I’m saying?
Jonathan – What exactly is ignorant? That Twitter sued the companies listed for the reasons mentioned? Are you affiliated with any of these companies named in the lawsuit, or you’re just ranting?