Sanford Wallace, the man they sued, has been spamming people for as long as the Web has existed, and before that sent junk faxes.
Court documents indicate that Wallace and an associate who was later dropped from the case spammed Facebook users with phishing messages. Those who clicked on the links and submitted login information to phishing sites allowed Wallace and his associate to then spam the phishing victim's friends, in turn generating more potential phishing victims. Facebook claims that Wallace also received payment for redirecting some spam recipients to Web sites that pay for referrals.
Facebook asked for damages of $7 billion under the CAN-SPAM act, instead of the only marginally less ridiculous $711 million the judge awarded them. In the end, it doesn't matter how much the judgment is, since Wallace declared bankruptcy a few months ago.
All is not lost—the spammer could also face jail time for violating a restraining order.
Facebook Wins $711 Million From Spammer [InformationWeek]
(Photo: ivanx)
]]>I suspect the majority of this guys finances are hidden. He's probably set for life and is enjoying the notoriety.
]]>Yeah. That's right. Hit--oh, never mind.
]]>Buy frozen orange juice futures and fresh fresh indio oats!
]]>@AppleAlex: I have to make a leap of judgement and say that it's more of a precident setting measure than anything else. In the event that someone actually earns the money that is fined in the past, then they will actually be able to penalize them the proper amount.
Say they keep charging people the 250K sentence on copyright violations. Then along comes someone caught in a third world country who has made millions off of it. They will still be able to fine him the proper amount and have him not get off because of what was done in the past.
This is the reason you see some companies go to court of the most stupid of things, only to settle with the victim after they win. It's a precedent setting measure.
]]>I would not be at all surprised if he just one day disappears.
]]>The laughable part about this lawsuit is that if Spamford ever did pay a cent of the fine (Which he won't) the money won't go to any of the people who got spammed.
]]>so yea that almost never happens. just a fun fact.
]]>Oh to be back in the old days when I was a honorable mention on the NetScum pages. Old Spammy and Walt "PickleJar" Rhines sure liked to go after anyone who spoke about them in NANAE!
]]>@H3ion: Awww, and miss out on all the lovin' that bubba will give him?
]]>Jail time would be wonderful but not in Club Fed. Put him in irons in a basement cell with no light and feed him nothing but Spam.
]]>but in this case it will be organs.
]]>Facebook wins $711 million; will collect $7.11 and a case of V!agra.
]]>That aside, yep, having judgments makes it very hard to own property or earn money through a paycheck. And if you don't make any effort to repay those judgments when you are able to, then you can be found in contempt in certain circumstances.
]]>I know there are lawyers that read this, so can one of you add to this? Without yelling at me for having a thought about something that I'm not an expert in the field of?
]]>If only the government can get more involved and sue the spammers before the independent companies can, sue each spammer for 2 times the national debt and get awarded at least some of that money, and pretty soon the spammers will be put to good use by paying off our national debt.
]]>look at those movie warnings that claim 5 years in jail and 25K for copyright infringement. of course the person gets locked up but do they really pay?
unless this spammer is close friends with Bill Gates or another of the worlds Billionaires MySpace and Facebook won't be getting their money
]]>So how does a person like this who has a history of this and obviously isn't afraid of fines avoid jail?
]]>