Twitter takes aim at paid follower services

Twitter has had a troubled year

Twitter is looking to crack down on services which sell follower accounts to users.

One such company, Australia-based uSocial, said that Twitter is attempting to stop it offering its paid follower service, which allows Twitter users to purchase packages which bring hundreds of accounts to the client as followers.

USocial claims to offer a marketing service which can increase the visibility of a client account, and has suggested that Twitter is trying to shut it down because it is tantamount to spamming.

"The definition of spam is using electronic messaging to send unsolicited communication and, as we don't use Twitter for this, the claims are false," said uSocial chief executive Leon Hill.

2009 has been a banner year for Twitter in which the company has seen its user base and press coverage surge. With that growth, however, has come a myriad of issues for the company.

Over the course of the year Twitter has had to deal with denial-of-service attacks and hacking attempts, to fake accounts and doubts over the company's value as a business tool.