Well, so much for the SingleStat.us experiment that allowed people to find out when someone on MySpace changes their relationship status. MySpace’s friendly lawyers sent a cease and desist letter to David Weekly, the engineer who built SingleStat.us, demanding he take the site down and claiming that his “activities are causing and will continue to cause MySpace substantial and irreparable harm.” It has come to our attention that you are operating a website under the domain name www.singlestat.us where you allow visitors to your website to investigate the current relationship status of any MySpace user and receive updates via e-mail when that user’s status changes. Although it may seem like an innocuous idea, the means by which you allow visitors to your website to investigate the relationship status of MySpace users constitutes an automated script program, the use of which is expressly prohibited by Section 8 of the Terms of Use Agreement between MySpace and its users. Such programs place an undue burden on the MySpace servers, thus detrimentally affecting the ability of the website to function. (emphasis added) Something tells me that MySpace might be exaggerating just a bit when they say SingleStat.us is causing them “undue server burden”. And if I’ve learned anything from covering companies, it’s that sending a cease and desist letter to a small, one-man startup is generally not going to work out the way you planned. Bad karma. Nevertheless, SingleStat.us is now in the TechCrunch DeadPool. Competitor DatingAnyone, a similar service, is still live. → Read More