• PC World, Friday, April 6, 2012 1:15 PM

Twitter’s mad as hell at spammers, and it’s not going to take it anymore! In a detailed blog post, the microblogging giant confirms filing a lawsuit against "five of the most aggressive tool providers and spammers" in a federal court in San Francisco.

"With this suit, we're going straight to the source," Twitter explains. In other words, by shutting down tool providers, the company hopes to prevent other spammers from having the services at their disposal.

In a complaint filed before the U.S District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco division, Twitter alleges that some of the defendants distribute software tools designed to facilitate the abuse of its platform and market it to dupe consumers into violating Twitter's user agreement, while others operate large numbers of automated Twitter accounts, through which they attempt to trick Twitter users into clicking on links to illegitimate websites.

As PCWorld notes, Twitter is just the latest Internet company to use legal action against alleged spammers. Earlier this year, for instance, Facebook and Washington State’s attorney general filed dual lawsuits against the co-owners of Adscend Media, an ad network that is alleged to develop and encourage others to spread spam, including through so-called "clickjacking."

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