Spam News

Facebook wins spam lawsuit against 'Spamford' Wallace

Friday, October 30, 2009

Facebook was awarded $711 million in damages by a judge in San Jose, California, yesterday in the social network's lawsuit against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, who may also face criminal charges for violating a restraining order.

Wallace, a self-proclaimed "spam king" who broke into Facebook user accounts to spread spam Wall posts and messages, was sued by Facebook in February along with two others for violations of the CAN-SPAM Act.

"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," Facebook's Sam O'Rourke said on a Facebook blog.

O'Rourke said the judge referred Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's Office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt for continuing to send spam on the network in violation of court order.

"This is another important victory in our fight against spam," O'Rourke said. "We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers."

Facebook has come under attack this week from cybercriminals spreading spam email messages claiming to come from Facebook and asking users to reset their passwords. The emails contain Trojan malware that can infect a user with a virus.

Another round of phony Facebook emails seek user login credentials and passwords, a phishing scam that also contains malware.