11/5/09
Facebook wins big in lawsuit against king of spam
Social networking site Facebook last week won a decisive victory against a man some referred to as the “spam king,” Sanford Wallace. Wallace's Cyber Promotions marketing company was once the largest single source of unsolicited email on the planet, slowing internet speeds across the globe, according to PC World.
Facebook said that Wallace accessed Facebook accounts without the permission of the owners in order to post advertisements on Facebook sites belonging to the owners' friends. The court awarded Facebook $711 million in punitive damages and Wallace may face jail time for his actions.
Experts say that spam can cut broadband speed drastically by taking up bandwidth that users require for legitimate task, in addition to causing severe annoyance from overfilled inboxes. Some estimates say that spam accounts for over 90 percent of all the email sent in a given day.
Wallace is no stranger to the losing end of legal action, having been cited by the FTC over an intrusive marking practice that was alleged to have installed spyware on some computers.
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