Apparently a good number of high profile Twitter accounts were hacked and used for various underhanded motives. Some were used to make fun of celebrities, such as Bill O’Reilly’s account saying “Bill O Riley is gay” and Rick Sanchez’s account saying “i am high on crack right now might not be coming to work today”. Other accounts were used to for profit, such as president-elect Barack Obama’s account posting a link to an survey where an affiliate makes money per sign up.

The messages all seemed to be written by different people with different purposes, but all happened at the same time which was a weird coincidence. It appears that it may have all started with one person “Gmz”, posting the various account credentials on a forum where others likely grabbed them to use for their own reasons.

Obviously impersonating others online is incredibly unethical. Whether you are doing it maliciously to embarass them or to use their influence to make money, what you are doing is wrong. Of course, not only is it wrong, it will likely lead to some nasty consequences if you are dumb enough to target the next president while leaving behind an easily trackable trail in an affiliate link.

Web services are slowly, but surely, being exposed for their lack of business ethics and potential illegal behavior. One such website, Classmates.com, has recently been attacked in a lawsuit for what boils down to false advertising and fraud.

Basically, Anthony Michaels, the plaintiff, is claiming that Classmates.com fraudulently misrepresented information to lure him into upgrading his account. The site dangled a carrot in front of him by saying his classmates were trying to get in touch with him when in reality, they were not.

Seems like a pretty straightforward case, though lawsuits regarding the internet never seem to get proper attention by the courts. If the decision lands in the plaintiffs favor, it could send repercussions throughout the Web as similar tactics are used all the time by dating websites, social networks, and other subscription-based services.

Online dating services are fairly big business on the Web. As previously discussed, the potential for earning big bucks with dating websites is part of the reason why there are so many fake profiles on the internet. But fake profiles aren’t the only way to lure in potential victi… er… I mean customers.

Offline marketing is a relatively untapped resource for pushing online services. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any companies out there taking advantage of some “old school” marketing tactics. Take this recently published article where a guy discovers just how far a particular company has gone by using good ‘ol lawn signs of all things.

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Many people agree that the current U.S. patent system is broken in some form or another, especially when it comes to technology. I’m all for having a process in place for individuals to protect their intellectual property so that they are recognized and rewarded for their inventions and creativity, but the hoarding of patents and the entire “patent troll” industry shines a harsh light on the faults in the system.

Well, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit may have made a pretty big step in the right direction as they delivered a ruling that should restricts patents for software and business methods. Basically, the court emphasized that these patents need to meet one of two specific criteria for them to be valid – a patent needs to be tied to a specific machine or it needs to change something from one “state” to another.

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One of the world’s largest spam rings has recently been targeted and shut down by authorities. The internation spam group was connected with Australia, India, China, New Zealand and the United States and is considered one of the most extensive spam operations uncovered to date.

The group used a botnet of 35,000 computers to spam emails that pushed counterfeit drugs, pornography, and herbal male enhancement pills – the kinds of email most think of when they think of spam. The group apparently cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in a single month. The F.T.C. has attempted to freeze the group’s finances while the federal government is pursuing criminal charges against the group.

People who spam like this are criminals and unethical human beings… it’s that simple. I hope they all get caught and are thrown behind bars so that they realize they can’t just hide behind their computer screens.

There’s not much else to say about this. Spam will never die, but every time a large spam group such as this gets caught, a tiny feeling of hope grows inside. That is, until I open my inbox and see hundreds of new offers for Viagra knock-offs.