The social networking site Tagged.com is facing a potential class action suit brought by two California residents who allege that the site fooled them into sharing their email contacts, which in turn resulted in those contacts receiving misleading ads.
The two plaintiffs allege they received emails invitations from Tagged that purported to be from people they knew to either view photos or join the site at the invitation of a friend. They further allege that Tagged did not disclose that it would harvest their email addresses and solicit membership from those contacts, once the women had joined the site.
"Tagged harvested millions of email addresses from the email address books of consumers," the complaint states. "Then, using these consumers' email account credentials, Tagged sent unsolicited advertisements to the harvested email addresses, making the messages appear as if they were invitations to join Tagged sent by persons known to the recipients." The lawsuit claims that this is in violation of the federal Stored Communications Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, among other laws.
Tagged.com could also be facing legal action from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who recently announced that he intends to sue the social networking site for invasion of privacy, engaging in a deceptive business practice and false advertising.
