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MySpace Wins $230 Million Judgment Against Sanford Wallace
smooth wombat writes "Apparently some people just don't take the hint. The latest story in the Sanford Wallace spamming saga is a $230 million verdict against Wallace and his partner, Walter Rines, when they failed to show up in court.
Wallace and Rines were accused by MySpace of creating their own accounts and taking over other accounts through phishing scams, and then using those accounts to send out bogus emails to other members. The emails sent would indicate a video or web site but when people would go to the link, the two would make money through the number of hits generated or they would try to sell something such as ring tones.
According to MySpace, the pair sent over 730,000 emails to members which resulted in bandwidth and delivery-related costs as well as complaints from hundreds of members. The 2003 CAN-SPAM Act allows MySpace to collect $100 per violation or triple that amount when the spam is sent 'willfully and knowingly.'"
The biggest surprise in the story is totally off-topic... I thought excite.com (the story link) was long dead. I guess it's been reborn as a handy way to wrap ads around Associated Press stories, but I still remember when they were in the running for King of Search. Now, I can't remember why I stopped using them, but the reason probably starts with G.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Why didn't they force the FBI to nail them on computer crimes relating to fraud and unauthorized access.
You or me wouldn't be able to pressure the FBI to do that, but Myspace and Fox are big enough.
Throw them into federal prison for a few years and maybe they will stop.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
"I hate spammers and MySpace alike, so I'm not sure what to think about this ruling."
Don't worry, with only 730k mails, those guy probably made at most 5 grands, so there won't be much to collect, probably not enough to cover MySpace's fees. But the message is "get caught spamming and we'll make sure you'll have to file for bankrupcy", which is good because most of these guys are only interested in easy cash, so they'll think twice before risking their house.
In this case it isn't about damage infliced it's about punishment. Imagine if the neighbor kid threw a rock through your window once a week, but every week his parents sent a check for twice the amount the window cost to replace. Surely you wouldn't care if the kid kept doing it; after all, it's not costing you anything.
Punative damages are designed to be excisive to prevent occurances in the first place. To be fair they got off light, the maximum charge of $300 per spam would put them at $2.2 billion.
3 "The 2003 CAN-SPAM Act allows MySpace to collect $100 per violation". Doesn't sound like MySpace have much incentive to make things more secure either, does it? :s
which is totally what she said
That's the name that I expected never to see again. What is next, Canter & Siegel?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Before UNH caught on, the school's entire email directory was publicly accessible. Obviously the work of Wallace, there were a bunch of spam emails poorly disguised to look like some girl's conversation about the club that she mistakenly forwarded to the whole school.