One of the most annoying things about Facebook is the amount of spammers attacking the social media site. As popularity in social communities rise, spammers have started to target these sites aggressively. One online marketer recently got slammed with a hefty suit awarding Facebook $711 million in damages.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a U.S. District Court in San Jose awarded Facebook $711 million in a case between the social media giant and an online marketer. Sanford Wallace and two other associates were linked to a spamming and phishing scheme that attracted the attention of Facebook.

Facebook claimed that Wallace and his associates setup accounts on the site with the intent to spam and phish on a wide scale back in 2008. Apparently Wallace sent Facebook members links to a Web site that phished the member into giving up their private login information. Facebook also alleges that he also sent users to a Web site that generated profit for Wallace.

According to the suit, Wallace perpetuated the scheme by logging into the hacked Facebook accounts and sending out more messages that phished other users. Facebook claimed that there were 14 million violations of the CAN-SPAM law. In 2009 the court issued restraining order and an injunction against Wallace.

Originally Facebook filed for $7.5 billion in damages from Wallace which was rejected by Judge Jeremy Fogel. Wallace has also been referred to the US attorney’s office by Fogel for criminal content and violating the court order after failing to show up for the scheduled court hearings.

Since then, Wallace has filed for bankruptcy and most likely will not be able to pay Facebook the full sum. However, this incident should serve as a reminder and a warning to all spammers out there that many of the social media sites will fight back.

Related:

Entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 2:58 pm under Scams, Security, Social Media, Spam.

Read more entries by Mike Ferro.
Stumble It!