MySpace sues Scott Richter for spam

Social networking giant MySpace is suing Scott Richter, chief executive at marketing firm Media Breakaway, for an unspecified amount of damages, claiming that he and his company were behind millions of spam messages sent to its customers' accounts.

MySpace, which has more than 150 million user profiles, filed the lawsuit against in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles last Friday and requested a permanent injunction barring Mr. Richter from entering its network.

The Fox Interactive Media-owned MySpace claims that Mr. Richter and his associates arranged for millions of unsolicited bulletins to be sent from MySpace users' accounts without their knowledge by gaining access to them illegally.

Mr. Richter paid $7 million in 2005 in a post-judgment settlement of a lawsuit filed by Microsoft Corp. and former New York attorney general and now New York governor Eliot Spitzer for sending spam e-mail.