Take That Sanford Wallace! Internet Spammer Ordered to Pay Facebook $711 Million
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) Internet "marketer" Sanford Wallace has made a name for himself by bothering people like you.
The one-time "Spam King" was the head of a company that reportedly sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s, and he took on Facebook in recent years by allegedly accessing users' accounts without their permission and sending phony posts and messages.
But the social networking Web site fought back, and won.
Facebook said Thursday a California court has awarded the site $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case against Wallace.
The company said on its blog that in addition to the damage award, the San Jose, Calif., court referred Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's office for prosecution for criminal contempt of court, meaning he could face jail time.
In 2006, Wallace was fined $4 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused him of running an operation that infected computers with software that caused flurries of pop-up ads, known as "spyware."
"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals," said Sam O'Rourke, associate general counsel for Facebook, in a blog posting Thursday. "This is another important victory in our fight against spam."
There was no phone number listed for Wallace in Las Vegas, where he is believed to be living, according to the ruling.
The company said the judgment marks the second-largest anti-spam award ever.
In November 2008, Facebook won an $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital, who bombarded users with sexually explicit spam messages.