We at Tagged would like to clarify, for you and your readers, that this matter has been resolved with the New York Attorney General and there will be no lawsuit.

Tagged regrets the confusion some experienced with our email invitation campaign in early June of 2009, that resulted in some complaints. We immediately addressed the issue and cooperated fully with the NYAG office.

Tagged has completely revamped our invitation process, used by all social networks, to make it the clearest in the industry. Everyday millions of people around the world enjoy interacting with our site and we are committed to ensuring people have a positive experience with Tagged.

If you would like to read more about the situation and our settlement please visit The Tagged Blog and this post: http://blog.tagged.com/?p=193. Thank you

We direct your attention to the analysis at Snopes.com!

NOTE THAT THE TAGGED BLOG POST IS DATED NOVEMBER 9, 2009. THE SNOPES ARTICLE WAS LAST UPDATED NOVEMBER 14, 2009 WHICH IS FIVE DAYS LATER!!!

Snopes says that YES there was deceptiveness by Tagged.com or Tagged.

Tagged.com is a social networking site which has been around since 2004.

Its current registration process asks applicants to supply an e-mail address and a password for accessing the corresponding e-mail account so Tagged can “match you up with your friends,” information which the company apparently uses to traverse address books (or other e-mail contacts) and send e-mailed invitations to the addresses found there — invitations like the ones noted above, which deceptively appear to have been sent by the Tagged members themselves and claim that the recipients have been “added as a friend,” “sent photos” or “sent a private message” on Tagged (even though no deliberate “adding” has taken place, nor have any photos or private messages for the recipients been posted for viewing).

An April 2007 eWeek article describes and verifies Tagged’s disingenuous e-mail generation process, and McAfee SiteAdvisor entry for Tagged.com has logged numerous complaints about the practice.

Tagged.com’s current terms of service (TOS) now include the following disclaimer acknowledging that its members’ personal information may be used for the purpose of “initiating commercial e-mail messages” (i.e. sending spam):

E) Notice Regarding Commercial Email

MEMBERS CONSENT TO RECEIVE COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM TAGGED, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT THEIR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED BY TAGGED FOR THE PURPOSE OF INITIATING COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES.

In November 2009, tagged.com was ordered to pay $500,000 in penalties and costs to the state of New York and $250,000 in penalties and costs to Texas.

Tagged CEO Greg Tseng said the 5-year-old company had voluntarily proposed reforms and overhauled its registration process. It also planned to add more privacy features. However, the company has failed to admit any wrongdoing.

Last updated: 14 November 2009

Evidence of….?

Social Network Tagged.com Being Sued for Identity Theft (video)

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has charged that social-networking service Tagged.com stole the identities of more than 60 million Internet users by sending e-mails that raided their private accounts. Cuomo says he plans to sue the site for deceptive marketing and invasion of privacy.

Sandy hutchens how had his identity riped-off by this scam is in a state of disbelief today.

Andrew Cuomo said he plans to sue the social networking website for deceptive marketing and invasion of privacy.

“This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people,” Cuomo said in a statement. “Consumers had their privacy invaded and were forced into the embarrassing position of having to apologise to all their email contacts for Tagged’s unethical – and illegal – behaviour.”

Started in 2004 by Harvard math students Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith, Tagged calls itself a “premier social-networking destination.” The California-based company claims to be the third-largest social networking site after Facebook and MySpace, with 80 million registered users.

Cuomo said Tagged acquired most of them fraudulently, sending unsuspecting recipients emails that urged them to view private photos posted by friends.

The message read: “(name of friend) sent you photos on Tagged.”

When recipients tried to access the photos, Cuomo said they would in effect become new members of the site – without ever seeing any photos.

Recipients’ email address books would then be lifted, the attorney general said.

Tagged temporarily suspended its online campaign last month, in response to user complaints.

Email and telephone messages to the company were not immediately returned.

“This very virulent form of spam is the online equivalent of breaking into a home, stealing address books, and sending phony mail to all of an individual’s personal contacts,” Cuomo said.

The system was set up so that a user was asked whether the sender of the photos was a friend, then suggesting that if the recipient didn’t respond, the friend “may think you said no” (accompanied by a sad face icon).

Any click resulted in the same thing, Cuomo said: Every person on a user’s contact list received an email that again read, “(name of user) sent you photos on Tagged.” The site then released a flood of offers for everything from sweepstakes to other services.

By the time a recipient realised there were no photos, it was too late.

Yesterday, a box on the site’s home page still read: “NOW HIRING … click here.”

The attorney general said a lawsuit would seek to stop Tagged from engaging in “fraudulent practices” and to seek fines