Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Anti-Spam Case

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook is on a never-before-seen legal rampage against high profile internet spammers. Today Facebook was awarded yet another nine-figure settlement, this time for over $700 million. Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace, which means a high likelihood of prison, a big win for the internet and a milestone in cyber law. 'The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,' Jeremy Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions."

Re:Free Viagra!

[mysidia]

The CAN-SPAM act ruined it by superceding prior federal law that made sending junk faxes/e-mail subject to a per-message penalty to be paid to the recipient, prior to the act.

Before then.. individuals did sometimes did sue spammers, I believe it was ~$500/message..

Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace

[Courageous]

No, we need a criminal conviction, not a "debtor's prison". In some states you cannot discharge by bankruptcy a civil outcome that proceeds from a criminal conviction. I.e., we need to go after folks like this criminally. His actions are clearly criminal. What Facebook should have done was sued the DA.

Don't hold your breath...

[damn_registrars]

... waiting to see a collection on that. Most likely he won't pay a dime of that fine. There is no reason to expect otherwise.

Re:Facebook is now the government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try not to read too much into the summary. If there is a criminal contempt case, it likely involved Facebook complaining to the court that Wallace isn't complying with the order, and the court handling the matter as a criminal one, probably due to well, gross contempt of it.

That's just a bit of speculation though, haven't read the matter enough to certify my explanation.

Re:Time for the death penalty

[10101001 10101001]

Oh, were you forced at gun point to install MS software? If not, and you still did, you opted in.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to use e-mail? If not, and you still did, you opted in to spam.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to eat that peanut butter? If not, and you still did, you opted in to contracting Salmonella.

Oh, were you forced at gun point to cross that street? If not, and you still did, you opted in to being ran over by a car.

Gosh, that's a silly argument.