SAN JOSE, Calif. - Facebook is suing Canadian Internet-porn company Istra Holdings, which controls SlickCash, and 17 individuals for allegedly trying to collect personal information about the social-networking site's users.
Facebook alleges that in June, the defendants' servers used automated scripts to make more than 200,000 requests for personal information stored on its site. The company said the automated scripts caused error messages to be generated, but did not state whether user information was successfully collected.
Facebook first filed suit in June, but amended the complaint earlier this month after obtaining court orders to identify who controlled the servers trying to access its site. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif.
Facebook has requested a jury trial and is seeking to bar the defendants from accessing its computer systems in the future, in addition to damages. The company said it cost at least $5,000 to investigate the hacking attempts.
The suit also names Brian Fabian and Josh Raskin as Toronto-based Istra employees and Ming Wu of Markham, Ontario, and 14 unidentified people.
SlickCash is an affiliate advertising business that offers commissions to Web publishers for referring Internet surfers to its portfolio of adult sites.
SlickCash representatives were unable to comment at the time of story.
