Monday, January 07, 2008

I incur the wrath of The Man

Look what I got in the post today:

From: 04.34.0.646176655F74686F6D617340686F746D61696C2E636F6D@message.myspace.com
To: {my e-mail address}
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 14:31:22 -0800
Subject: Account deleted for violation of Terms of Service

Your MySpace account has been deleted for violating our Terms of
Service.

This is usually due to one of the following:

* Nude images, sexually suggestive or violent photos
* Covering our banner ads with HTML
* Harassing other users
* You do not meet the minimum age requirement
* Spamming the classifieds, forums, bulletins, or other sections of the site
* Attempting to artificially inflate scores
* Scripting the site

Your account cannot be restored. If you choose to return to MySpace, please follow the rules.

-------------------------

At MySpace we care about your privacy. This email is never sent
unsolicited.

If you think you've received this email in error, or if you have any
questions or concerns regarding your privacy, please contact us at:

privacy@myspace.com

MySpace, Inc.
8391 Beverly Blvd. #349
Los Angeles, CA 90048
USA

©2003-2007 MySpace.com. All Rights Reserved.

What did I do? Clearly I must have transgressed one of the regulations in the list above. I knew I shouldn't have hosted that nude volleyball tournament for those nuns.

Or, alternatively.....MySpace has recently been taken over by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and a few stories have been doing the rounds about people suddenly having their MySpace accounts terminated for reasons that seem unclear and arbitrary, at best. Murdoch, NewsCorp and its various subsidiaries have some previous in this area, including the business with HarperCollins and Chris Patten's Hong Kong memoirs back in 1998.

Anyway, this is all a good opportunity for some ultra-paranoid apocalyptic ramblings of this nature, but the fact is I do not have, and never have had, a MySpace account. So you'd think this must be spam, but in fact it appears to be genuine. I'll try dropping the (also genuine) e-mail address at the bottom a polite WTF-type query (pointing out the "never sent unsolicited" bit specifically) and see what happens.

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