MySpace Wins $234 Million Anti Spam Judgement

The social-networking site MySpace has won a $234 million antispam judgment, according to the Associated Press.  OUCH

On the losing side of the award–believed to be the largest ever under the 2003 Can-Spam Act–were defendants Walter Rines and Sanford Wallace, the so-called spam king. MySpace won the case against Wallace after he failed numerous times to turn over documents or even to show up for court.

“MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site,” MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam told the AP. “We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members.”

In March of last year, MySpace filed suit against Wallace alleging he launched a phishing scam to fraudulently access MySpace profiles. Wallace was also accused of spamming thousands of MySpace users with unwanted advertisements and luring them to his Web sites.

MySpace said Wallace and Rines sent 735,925 messages to MySpace members. Under Can-Spam, each violation entitles MySpace to $100 in damages, tripled when conducted “willfully and knowingly,” according to the report.

He has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission and companies such as AOL and Concentric Network Corp. In May 2006, Wallace and his company Smartbot.net were ordered by a federal court to turn over $4,089,500.

Wallace earned the nicknames “Spamford” and “spam king” for his past role as head of CyberPromotions, a company responsible for sending as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s.