Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Spam Case
 

Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Spam Case
Sanford Wallace "faces possible jail time," too
By Doug Caverly

Spammers may want to steer clear of Facebook in the future. Late yesterday, a representative of the social network's legal team announced that it was awarded $711 million in damages as a result of a case against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace.

As Sam O'Rourke explained on the Facebook Blog, Wallace is "one of the spammers who accessed people's accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages." And he's harassed folks in other ways over the years to the point that a 725-word Wikipedia article is tied to his name.

Now, a sort of downside of this development is that Wallace probably doesn't have $711 million to give Facebook. He may try to get away without paying anything, in fact.

Still, O'Rourke wrote, "[W]e hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals. Most notably, the judge referred Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's Office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that in addition to the judgment, he now faces possible jail time. This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers."

So if you're spammed on Facebook - and it's looking less likely that you will be - take comfort in the fact that the person responsible may get in quite a lot of trouble.


http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/20...n-in-spam-case

Interesting > Spammers will just work from Russia and not get in trouble though.

I see Sanford is still around :)
WG

havent seen that name in a while

"one of the spammers who accessed people's accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages."

- That's terrible!




Yes, Russian spammers working from Russia can get away with a lot of spam. Spamming on the internet is too complex a crime for the authorities to be able to deal with it.

fuck i was getting like 300 facebook spams daily in my email.. i had to block anything that said facebook.

i don't know where they come up with these numbers...they might as well fined him "infinity dollars"...

Probably one of those $20,000 per offense x 48749875984981234091328407 offenses fines.

If they would just rewrite the SMTP protocols from scratch spamming would end tomorrow...

Being able to log into a unsecured SMTP server that allows relaying and upload your message with a thousand carbon copies makes spamming so damn profitable and easy. That is the cause of why it won't EVER stop.

Makes me think the settlement privately was for much less. A hundred thousand or maybe even a few million. The $711 million figure was just a public release to scare would-be spammers.

How many judgements does this make against Spamford? 10+, 50+, 100+???

He filed bankruptcy the same day as the judgement was handed down, so he'll be back and spamming as usual in a matter of days.

Until they hand out jail time he'll never stop.

He may well be on his way to jail

"Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that in addition to the judgment, he now faces possible jail time."

I was reading about that UK guy Gary McKinnon that hacked into the US Military computers

He is being extradited to the US and will have a long jail sentance

"If extradited and convicted in the US, the Glasgow-born computer enthusiast, who now lives in Wood Green, north London, could face up to 70 years in prison."

They should do the same to spammers Send the fuckers to jail and not award stupid amounts of $$ that they will never be able to pay :2 cents:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7839338.stm


He lost his apeal to stay in the UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8177561.stm

"Today, a San Jose, Calif. court awarded Facebook $711 million in damages "

Where do you see anything about a private settlement ?

Mark Zuckerberg likes this

damn, this thread made me wanna spam facebook

lol :1orglaugh

interesting that they might force him to come the the U.S. to go to jail, funny to see some justice with these fuckers that think that they are untouchable

ahhhhh now i see facebooks revenue model....

lol, was thinking the same thing

and what if spammer is from India?