LATE LAST WEEK FACEBOOK WAS AWARDED a judgement of $711 million against a major “spam king” who never showed up for the trial. CNET News is reporting:
Judge Jeremy Fogel of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California granted Facebook’s application for a default judgment against Sanford Wallace for violating the Can-Spam Act, which bans “false and misleading” marketing e-mails. Fogel also found that Wallace “willfully violated” a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction issued in the case and referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecution of criminal contempt.
“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,” Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which also permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions.
Wallace had operated a major “phishing” scam using Facebook members’ addresses to send out millions of spam mails. He has also had several other multi-million-dollar judgements issued against him from other web operators. His failure to pay his judgements and his continued practice of continuing to behave this way is probably why the “criminal contempt” charge has been referred. In March, 2008, Firgeezer reported (HERE) on another unrepentent spammer who refused to stop and eventually received a 26-yr. prison sentence and had all his assets seized.
Read the CNET News article HERE for the full story on this current judgement.
Hat tip: John S.
Also on FireGeezer…
- EMT Pleads Guilty On Facebook Photo Posting – December 10, 2010
- Fired Facebook EMT Gets Day in Court – January 26, 2011
- AMR vs. Facebook Settlement – February 8, 2011
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