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Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Anti-Spam Case

Posted by Soulskill on from the yet-another-spam-king-dethroned dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook is on a never-before-seen legal rampage against high profile internet spammers. Today Facebook was awarded yet another nine-figure settlement, this time for over $700 million. Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace, which means a high likelihood of prison, a big win for the internet and a milestone in cyber law. 'The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,' Jeremy Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions."

4 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Time for the death penalty by JoshuaZ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's a certain point where we need to consider the death penalty for this sort of thing. Sure, we normally only use the death penalty for heinous crimes, but from a utilitarian perspective it is quite clear that people like Sanford Wallace are doing far more damage to society. If Wallace is taken out and shot he'll lose about 365*50*24= 438,000 life hours. On the other hand, even a year or two of Wallace's normal behavior causes the rest of society to lose far more time. We should consider a death penalty for serious spammers or possibly a long sentence where he is kept far away from any computer.

    1. Re:Time for the death penalty by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You agreed at some point to buy a Microsoft product. You or someone you are helping opted in. And most likely once you've got it working you will actually have saved time overall. There's no claim that a) people opted in to Wallace's crap or b) that anyone will save time overall from what Wallace is doing.

  2. How is Facebook going to distribute... by JBL2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... the money to the users who suffered damage?

  3. Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace by nametaken · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You notice that there's a billion dollars in risk here?

    Sounds to me like there is considerable incentive to be an epic scale douchebag of the internet. You'd think he'd be a gajillionaire, right?

    Except...

    "As of October 2003, he is working as a DJ in Las Vegas, making weekly appearances at OPM nightclub (name changed to 'Poetry Nightclub' October 5, 2007) in Caesars Palace Forum Shops on the Las Vegas Strip. Wallace performs under the name DJ MasterWeb.[8]"

    "Wallace filed for bankruptcy in June, 2009. On 2009-10-29, a Northern California District Court Judge awarded Facebook $711M in damages.[12]. Although unlikely to collect due to his bankruptcy, the presiding judge in the case also recommended Criminal Contempt charges against Wallace, who may face jail time as a result." -wiki

    So uh, it's not like he's ridonculously wealthy as a result of being a sleezebag? What gives???