Amazon moves to tackle alleged email fraudsters

Amazon is seeking millions of dollars in damages against 11 email marketing companies for allegedly using its identity to send spam emails.

The online retailer has filed lawsuits in the US and Canada against the email marketers, seeking injunctions to stop the alleged forgeries as well as punitive damages.

Amazon said the move was part of a wider attempt to stamp out so-called "spoofing", whereby spammers hide their identities behind purportedly bona fide email addresses.

In one case referred to by Amazon, a Miami-based company Rockin Time Holdings used the address andrea.cvalenzuela3@amazon.com to send out ads for Gain Pro Penile Pills, while another used tifqixcnti@amazon.com to promote tools for creating and sending spam.

"Spoofers lie about who's really sending these emails. Spoofing is forgery and we're going after spoofers to the full extent of the law," Amazon's associate general counsel, David Zapolsky, said in a statement.

Amazon said it has set up a special email address, stop-spoofing@amazon.com,

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for users to report suspected spoofing.

The online retailer also said it had begun working with internet service providers and other legitimate online operators to develop a technical remedy for the problem.

"Spoofing is a problem faced by any company with a trusted domain name that uses email to communicate with its customers. It's not just spam; it's consumer fraud," Mr Zapolsky added.

In a related development, the New York attorney general's office said it had settled civil fraud charges against one of the alleged fraudsters identified by Amazon.

The settlement against white goods promoter Cyebye.com prevents the retailer from using third party names to market its products without an express agreement to do so.

Cyebye is now required to keep records of all emails sent over the next two years and was fined £6,000.