Myspace wins $230 million spam judgment

MYSPACE has won a $230 million against a spammer in what it claims is the largest anti-spam award ever.

Sanford Wallace, and his partner, Walter Rines, received the judgement after they failed to show up in court.

Wallace dubbed "Spam King" and "Spamford" are thought to have sent up to 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s.

Later Wallace was involved in a spyware case that led to a $4 million federal judgement against him in 2006.

According to MySpace, Rines and Wallace created their own accounts or stole passwords through "phishing" scams. They used these to email Myspace members suggesting they look at a video or website. But if anyone was dumb enough to follow the link, they tried to flog you something.

MySpace claimed the pair sent more than 730,000 messages to its members, many made to look like they were coming from mates.

Despite the judgement, there is little chance that MySpace would be able to collect the money. Wallace was last heard of in Las Vegas where he moved to in 2004 to pursue night club promotion work. No one has found him since. µ

L'Inq
AP