The ‘king of spam’ must pay Facebook 700 million dollars

Facebook has won yet another massive judgment against a spammer who already owes $234 million to MySpace.

Today, a California court awarded Facebook $711 million in civil damages against Sanford Wallace, the notorious sell proclaimed “spam king” who is also known by the derisive nickname “Spamford.” The court found Wallace guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act, and he could face time in prison if convicted.

“While we don’t expect to quickly collect the full amount, we’ll work hard to get everything we can,” Simon Axten, a privacy and public policy associate at Facebook, said in a statement.

Facebook filed suit against Wallace, Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw on Feb. 24 for engaging in a phishing and spamming scheme that compromised a substantial number of Facebook accounts. Several weeks later, Facebook secured a restraining order against the spammers.

The trio was accused of sending out e-mails to Facebook members, which included links to outside Web sites that would allow them to gain control over members’ accounts and spam friends with similar messages and Wall posts.