Facebook wins against ‘Spam King’ Wallace

2009-11-01

Helen Martin

Virus Bulletin, UK

Editor: Helen Martin

Abstract

Social networking giant awarded damages against Sanford Wallace.

Facebook has become the latest global giant to be awarded damages in a case against ‘Spam King’ Sanford Wallace. The social networking company was awarded $711.2 million in damages last month.

The company filed legal action against notorious spammer Wallace after he was found to have hacked into users’ accounts, made fake postings and sent fake messages advertising various products and services. A statement on the Facebook official blog suggested that the company does not expect to receive ‘the vast majority of the award’. Wallace himself failed to appear in court, and the judge referred him to the US Attorney’s Office with a request that he be prosecuted for criminal contempt (for which he may face jail time).

Wallace came to prominence as a prolific spammer in the mid 1990s, but in 1998 announced his retirement from the spamming business after facing lawsuits from AOL and CompuServe. However, he didn’t stay off the scene for long – in 2008 MySpace was awarded what was at the time a record $230 million in a lawsuit against Wallace and his cohort Walter Rines for spamming and phishing activities. MySpace has so far failed to collect its damages from the duo.

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