Yahoo is taking legal action against spammers for sending emails purporting to be from the internet company telling recipients they have won a lottery in a scam designed to get personal information from web users.
The company has launched a lawsuit against Yahoo Lottery Spammers for "unlawfully sending email messages to internet users for the purpose of deceiving them into believing that they have won a lottery or prize offered by Yahoo".
Yahoo Lottery Spammers' email scam, a widespread practice commonly known as phishing, attempts to get internet users to reveal personal information such as passwords or credit card information by mimicking a legitimate communication from a well-known company.
"The unauthorised use of Yahoo's trademarks is misleading, fraudulent, and has actually confused, misled, and deceived the public," said Joe Siino, senior vice-president of global intellectual property and business strategy for Yahoo.
"Yahoo will vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights and will not tolerate lottery hoax emails," Siino added.
The company added in a statement: "The spammers willfully masqueraded as Yahoo and sent emails claiming that the recipient had won a lottery, prize or other award from Yahoo.
"Yahoo does not offer any such awards and has no affiliation or any connection with the spammers or their email communications."
The company's lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City, follows a record payout of $230m to MySpace in a legal judgment earlier this month over junk messages sent to its members by "Spam king" Sanford Wallace and business partner Walter Rines.
John Kremer, vice-president of Yahoo Mail, said: "Yahoo is 100% committed to protecting our users from fraudulent email messages and this lawsuit sends a clear message to spammers.
"We are going after individuals who have attempted to negatively impact the email experience for consumers across the internet. Through our continued litigation efforts, our top goal and priority is to further protect Yahoo Mail users and the public from this type of fraudulent activity."
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