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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."

6 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. A Time Line of Sanford Wallace by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What's wrong with this picture?

    2004-10-08 FTC files suit against Wallace to stop infecting computers with spyware that promised to remove the problem for $30.
    2006-03-22 FTC files suit against Wallace--Wallace and co-defendants fined for over $5 million.
    2008-01-26 MySpace awarded $230 million from Wallace in LA.
    2009-10-29 (Yesterday) Facebook awarded $711 million from Wallace.

    If you say seven hundred million and jail time is too much, I say it isn't enough. A warning didn't stop him, five million didn't stop him, two hundred million didn't stop him and I'm sure seven hundred million won't stop him. Throw the book at him and lock him up--this is definition CAN-SPAM Act. And he's a heavy repeat offender, it's not like this guy was blindsided with a surprise ruling. Spam is too kind of a label for this guy, I would hit him for extortion and identity theft on massive scales in addition to CAN-SPAM.

    How he continued to operate with a two hundred million dollar loss a year and a half ago is beyond me. Is he just declaring bankruptcy (like he did back June '09), rolling over and doing it again? Or avoiding states where there's a warrant for his arrest or what?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:A Time Line of Sanford Wallace by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It can't be that hard.

      Yes, well, it can be that hard. There are lots of intelligent people who aren't and can't be rich, although they want to be.

      More than intelligence is required.

      And apparently, for this guy, he's skilled in getting rich using uncouth methods. It's what he's familiar with, it's what comes easy for him (I suppose)

  2. Nice by mosb1000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's good to see a corporation winning a $700,000,000 against an individual once in a while.

  3. 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 AJWM · · Score: 5, Funny

      And an appropriate execution method might be death by ten thousand paper cuts. Or just leave him naked in mosquito country at the start of the season. I mean, it's not like any one cut or bite is that serious....

      --
      -- Alastair
  4. How is Facebook going to distribute... by JBL2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

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