Facebook has been awarded damages of $711 million against Sanford Wallace, who spammed the social network with fake messages. Wallace was sued in February, alongside Adam Arzoomanian, for obtaining login details for accounts and using them to send links to phishing or commercial sites that paid spammers for referrals.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California came up with the $711 million figure by issuing $50 per violation of the CAN-SPAM Act - of which there would be approximately 1.4 million.
According to the company blog, Facebook "doesn"t expect to receive the vast majority of the award" however, they are hoping that a separate criminal action will send him to jail.
In addition to the damages, Wallace has also been referred for prosecution for criminal contempt of court by Judge Jeremy Fogel.
This isn"t the first time Wallace has been fined for spamming. He was found guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act in May 2008. That time he was ordered to pay $230 million for spamming and phishing on MySpace. He was also fined $4 million by the FTC in 2006 and has had many other lawsuits filed against him in between.
Thanks to lee26 for the news tip.