Yahoo Aims to Hunt Down Lottery Spammers

Twenty five con artists who used a fictional "Yahoo Lottery" to extract personal information and money from victims could be facing legal repercussions, if Yahoo ever finds them.

Perhaps encouraged by other recent legal victories over spammers, Yahoo acknowledged Tuesday that it had unleashed its own legal dogs to track down and convict the spammers who allegedly hijacked the Yahoo name for spam. The Web giant recently filed suit against the anonymous offenders, still labeled “John/Jane Does 1-25,” in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.

According to Yahoo, the spammers posed as representatives of the company in a slew of phishing e-mails claiming recipients had won the Yahoo Lottery, a contest that doesn’t actually exist. Like all phishing schemes, duped “winners” would be conned into revealing passwords, credit card information, social security numbers and in some cases, even sending money to the spammers for “processing and mailing charges.”

Yahoo will pursue the case under the Federal Trademark Act, the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, and related state laws. “The unauthorized use of Yahoo’s trademarks is misleading, fraudulent, and has actually confused, misled, and deceived the public,” said Joe Siino, Yahoo’s Senior VP of Global IP and Business Strategy, in a statement. “Yahoo! will vigorously enforce its intellectual property rights and will not tolerate lottery hoax emails.”

Although Yahoo may be able to make a sound legal case against its 25 anonymous defendants, actually identifying and collecting rewards from them could be a much more difficult proposition. As MySpace recently proved with its $230 million judgment against identified spammers, sometimes legal victories are just that – strictly legal.