PSBJ photos / Anthony Bolante

Facebook General Counsel Ted Ullyot (left) speaks at a press conference at Facebook's Seattle office while Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna (center) and Facebook Lead Litigation Counsel Craig Clark listen.

Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is putting the resources and expertise of his office behind a problem that is plaguing social media giant Facebook: spam that is targeting Facebook members.

Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna speaks at a press conference at Facebook's Seattle office

Facebook and McKenna are teaming up to fight “clickjacking” on social media websites with parallel lawsuits against Delaware-based Adscend Media LLC.

“We don’t ‘like’ schemes that illegally trick Facebook users into giving up personal information or paying for unwanted subscription services through spam,” McKenna said during a news conference at Facebook’s Seattle office. “We applaud Facebook for devoting significant technical and legal resources to finding and stopping scams as soon as possible – and often before they even start. We’re proud to join forces in order to protect Washington consumers.”

McKenna and Facebook attorneys said Adscend is making $20 million a year by getting people to click on deceptive links that spread spam to their network of Facebook friends. The goal, said prosecutors and Facebook attorneys, is to go after “the head of the snake” and dry up its source of revenue that is encouraging tactics that hijack clicks and “friending” on Facebook.

Adscend is an online ad network that works with affiliates to place ads for brands on the internet. The legal action is not targeting brands, which likely are not aware that Adscend and its affiliates are allegedly responsible for the spamming tactics, said Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis.

Facebook’s fast-growing office has about 70 workers, most of them developers. Facebook’s Seattle employees have worked on Facebook apps for iPhone and iPad and Facebook’s video chat integration with Skype. Engineers in Seattle also have worked on security fixes to counter the spammers.

The attorney general filed suit against Adscend and its owners, Jeremy Bash of Huntington, W.V., and Fehzan Ali, of Austin, Texas, in U.S. District Court in Seattle. The suit alleges violations of various federal and state laws, asks the court to enjoin the company from future violations and seeks damages and civil penalties.

Facebook filed a parallel lawsuit against Adscend and its owners Thursday in federal court in the Northern District of California.

“Security is an arms race, and that’s why Facebook is committed to constantly improving our consumer safeguards while pursuing and supporting civil and criminal consequences for bad actors,” Facebook General Counsel Ted Ullyot said.

Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis

Adscend Media describes itself as a marketing network that has a turn-key option that can generate revenue from nearly any web content:

In short, you provide desirable content, visitors gain access to it by completing some short action (such as submitting their email address), and we pay you each time. Every visitor that views your locked content puts money in your account. For U.S. traffic this is generally about $1 per action.

The company did not respond to my request for comment about the lawsuits.

Facebook’s lead litigation counsel, Craig Clark, said that Facebook is constantly playing “Wac-A-Mole” with spammers.

Facebook works with outside engineers and fraud and security experts and has a bug bounty program that pays research and security experts to spot bugs in the software that make Facebook vulnerable. The company also goes after suspected spammers with legal action.

“But spammers iterate, too,” Clark said. “This is truly an arms race and often legal action trails technology.”

According to McKenna, companies such as Adscend lure Facebook users by offering opportunities to view “salacious or provocative” material, requiring them to complete a series of steps that eventually take them off Facebook and onto unrelated advertising and subscription sites that often try to get them to offer up personal information or sign up for expensive subscription services. The scammers receive money for each misdirected user.

“Clickjacking” refers to embedding a hidden code in an enticing link that activates Facebook’s “like” function and puts it on users’ news feeds, spreading the spam further.

McKenna said his office was a logical partner with Facebook on the issue of spam because state prosecutors in Washington have the technical and legal expertise to pursue such cases. Long before other attorneys general in other states realized that spam was something more than canned meat, McKenna said he and his predecessors have been focused on cyber crime. The state AG’s office has computer forensic experts and a computer lab to catch spyware.

McKenna said his office has been in talks with Facebook about the problem for a year and that last spring, Selis sent him a memo outlining how a case could be pursued.

McKenna urged state attorneys general in other states to file similar suits.