Tagged.com Phishing Website

 I’ve had a couple real-world friends send me invitations to this website so I checked it out a bit. Here is info on Tagged.com:

Tagged.com is a phishing website that masquerades as social networking website. It was co-founded by Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith and launched in October 2004 by Tagged Inc. and is privately owned. The site allows its users to send messages, leave comments, post bulletins, customize status, browse photos, watch videos, play games, give tags, chat and make friends. Early innovations include the use of slides and Youtube as a part of the site’s graphical interface. As of July 2008, the site claims to have 70,000,000 registered users.

Criticism

Tagged has been criticized for its policy toward its users’ email address books. These policies have been described as spamming at best, and as phishing attacks at worst. During the sign-up process the user has to provide the password of his or her email account. After that follow several pages of commercial offers and contracts, and the user is asked to provide home address, cell phone number, and mother’s maiden name. The user who bails on the process halfway through is automatically signed up for telephone voicemail service and billed for services on their monthly local bill.

The site also sends emails with HTML code that reads personal information from the recipient’s computer when opened. The encoded pixel tags are tiny graphic files which collect data on the user by reading cookies on the user’s computer for the purposes of creating a database of personal information which can be sold to third parties

9 thoughts on “Tagged.com Phishing Website

  1. I was trying to respond to a business associates e-mail, he uses this site. I had to navigate through all of this crap to try to read his e-mail. I do not like this site and have never heard of this site. Can you please tell me how to get OFF OF THIS SITE? Please e-mail me on how to do this.

  2. Ok, then here’s some evidence. Visit:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged
    You will notice a $900,000 fine from the CAN-SPAM Act. My original post here was from August 2008. I have definately noticed a decrease in contact emails from this website. I used to receive several emails daily.

    And here is an excerpt from that Wikipedia entry:

    Tagged provides a feature whereby users are invited to provide it with their email username and password, and it will then check their email address books to see if their existing friends are already on Tagged. They then have the option of connecting with friends already on Tagged and repeatedly sending email invites to friends who are not yet on Tagged. This process has met some criticism in the technology press[13][14] and from some users.[15] However, in March 2008 Microsoft announced a commercial partnership with social networking sites Tagged, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, and hi5 regarding email contacts APIs[16][17] which has since been implemented [18].Prior to Tagged, Greg Tseng was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet incubator Jumpstart Technologies.[19] In March 2006, Jumpstart Technologies settled with the FTC on alleged violations of the CAN-SPAM Act, which included a $900,000 fine, but no admission of guilt.[20]

    From February 2009, Tagged.com has been blocked in the State of Qatar by the only ISP Qtel after a number of “complaints from the public”. [21] Tagged.com is one of the 10 most visited sites in the State of Qatar.[22]

    Tagged is known for a major lack of spam guards in user profiles, thus allowing users journals to be hijacked and repetitive messages of spam be posted.

  3. Hansi, you just got s3rv3d by askland son! LOL!!! see you on tagged.com

  4. I bailed on signing up for tagged.com halfway through – good thing I used my work phone number instead of my home or cell number. tagged.com smells bad – they wanted the last four digits of my Social Security Number. What legitimate reason could they possibly have for wanting that?

  5. I use tagged but am about ready bail and find a new site I don’t care what anybody say’s they have people men and women stealing profiles with pic’s and then these people say they are that person tagged say’s this is not taking place they are full of it I myself get 2-3 of them a week and I am getting sick of trying to figure out which ones are real and which ones are fake that is there job and you can’t find a phone number to contact tagged.com if I could I would and give them a piece of my mind and the reason some people say they don’t have this problem on tagged.com well some people believe everything there told but there stupid,stupid,stupid u can’t believe everything someone tells u on any of the sites like this I think they should shut this site down I would miss my friends but I don’t think tagged.com is to safe either I know there had been a couple of women killed by men they met on tagged.com I read what came out of the paper I agree with Dr Click tagged.com SMELLS BAD

  6. Tagged should be permently put out of business. Not only is it feed ground for viruses, the owners are magets. This site deletes indivuals who put up descent photos, and allow porn pages to remain…, I guess that is how they get their rocks off. I’ve been on the site for over a year now and it it has gone from bad to worst, and now it is time for me to say “Goodbye and good riddens”

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