MySpace spammers fined $230m

MySpace has won its legal challenge against two individuals who bombarded its members with spam.

Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines were fined a whopping $230m for the spam attacks.

However, MySpace is unlikely to see the money since the pair failed to turn up in court and have gone missing.

"The judgement against the spammers is astronomical because each spam message entitles MySpace to $100 in damages under the terms of the Can-Spam Act," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"In the war against spam it is right that large companies should have a heavy stick like this to hit the spammers with. But these two are just the tip of the iceberg.

"Even if MySpace were to extricate the fine from these two men, which seems unlikely given their past record, there will be plenty more cyber-criminals trying to make money from junk email."

According to court records, Wallace and Rines sent 735,925 messages and earned over $500,000 in the process. Some emails contained links to pornographic sites that were sent to children, causing a storm of complaints.

Wallace already has an outstanding $4m fine from the Federal Trade Commission after losing a case over the installation of spyware on users' computers.

See also:

Spammers fill up on petrol scam

Bogus fuel discount vouchers flooding inboxes  12 May 2008

Security firms 'celebrate' 30 years of spam

Anniversary of first junk email  02 May 2008

Hackers look to 'hardware viruses'

Malicious circuits much more difficult to detect  01 May 2008

Spam Pledge calls for end to junk email

Thirty years is enough, says Sophos  01 May 2008

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