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MYSPACE VIOLATION: Sanford Wallace (above) and his partner sent more than 730,000 junk messages to MySpace members. -- PHOTO: AP
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A NOTORIOUS 'Spam King' and his partner now owe MySpace about US$230 million (S$320 million) in damages after a court awarded the popular online hangout what is believed to be the largest anti-spam judgment ever.
A Los Angeles judge ruled against the notorious Sanford Wallace, and his partner, Walter Rines, after they failed to show up in court on Tuesday.
Wallace, 39, earned the monikers 'Spam King' and 'Spamford' as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mail messages a day in the 1990s.
He left that company, Cyber Promotions, following lawsuits from leading Internet service providers such as AOL, only to re-emerge in a spyware case that led to a US$4 million federal judgment against him in 2006.
Rines and Wallace created their own MySpace accounts or took over existing ones by stealing passwords through 'phishing' scams, MySpace's chief security officer, Mr Hemanshu Nigam, said.
The pair sent more than 730,000 messages to other MySpace members, 'asking them to check out a cool video or a cool site'.
Many of the messages were made to look like they were coming from friends.
Under a federal anti-spam law, each violation entitles MySpace to US$100 in damages, tripled when conducted 'wilfully and knowingly'.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
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