Twitter files lawsuit against alleged spammers and spam tool providers

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers in a federal court in San Francisco, opening a new front in its battle against spam, it said Thursday.

With this suit, we’re going straight to the source, Twitter said in a blog post. It hopes the civil suit will act as a deterrent to spammers. By shutting down tool providers, it expects to prevent other spammers from having the services at their disposal, the company said.

Twitter is the latest among Internet companies to use legal action against alleged spammers. In January, Facebook and the Washington state attorney general announced dual lawsuits against the co-owners of Adscend Media, an ad network that is alleged to develop and encourage others to spread spam, including through so-called clickjacking. Adscend denied the allegations, and instead said it would investigate for the malpractices the affiliates it hires to drive traffic to advertisers’ sites — via redwolf.newsvine.com