Myspace Awarded $230 Million in Spam Case
Posted on: Wednesday, 14 May 2008, 11:10 CDT
A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled against a notorious online spammer in a $230 million judgment over thousands of deceptive messages, which were sent over Myspace.The popular social networking Web site brought charges against Walter Rines and his partner Sanford Wallace, who got his beginnings as a “Spam King” in the 1990s when he sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails each day to users worldwide.
Wallace and his partner failed to show up at the court hearing.
"MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site," said MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam.
"We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members."
Nigam said that Wallace and Rines were able to create “fake” profiles and take over existing ones by stealing passwords.
The spammers used the fake profiles to mass-message other members of Myspace. The messages would lead users to a site aimed at selling them products like ring tones, from which Walter and Rines were paid by the number of hits received.
More than 730,000 messages were sent to members of Myspace . Under the 2003 federal anti-spam law, each violation carries a $100 amount in court, which is tripled when conducted "willfully and knowingly."
Myspace also claimed that the activity of spammers has also raised their bandwidth and delivery-related costs, not to mention the uproar of complaints from its users.
"Anybody who's been thinking about engaging in spam are going to say, 'Wow, I better not go there,'" Nigam said. "Spammers don't want to be prosecuted. They are there to make money. It's our job to send a message to stop them."
It is doubted that Myspace will ever try to collect the $230 million it was awarded, but instead the social network will use the case as a landmark decision in hopes of deterring any future spamming activity.
John Levine, a board member for the anti-spam advocacy group Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, said that past spam judgments he knows of have been in the tens of millions of dollars.
He said he would be surprised, though, if MySpace ever collected.
"The giant judgments are all defaults, which means they don't necessarily even know how to find the spammer," Levine said.
Wallace’s location is currently unknown. He moved to Las Vegas in 2004 to begin working as a club promoter. Phone service was disconnected for two listed numbers for Rines in Stratham, N.H.
U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins awarded the amounts sought by MySpace: $157.4 million jointly against Rines and Wallace and an additional $63.4 million against Rines under CAN-SPAM - plus $1.5 million more against the pair under California's anti-phishing law and $4.7 million in attorneys fees. MySpace said it was entitled to another $3 million from Rines and Wallace under a different section of CAN-SPAM.
Another case is already pending between Myspace and Scott Richter, who allegedly used similar methods to steal passwords and spam users’ inboxes.
---
On the Net:
Myspace
Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports
Rating: 3.4 / 5 (8 votes)
 |
 |
Rate this article:
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds