MySpace Wins An Uncollectable $234 Million Award In Spam Case

from the sending-a-message? dept

Last month, we wrote about how MySpace had won its case against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace -- the infamous 1990s "Spam King" who (despite losing many court battles and owing millions in fines) simply can't seem to give up his obsession with scammy marketing techniques. The win was a default judgment, mainly because Wallace simply disappeared and stopped responding to court requests. Today, a judge ruled on the punishment, officially awarding MySpace $234 million from Wallace and his associate Walter Rines. Given Wallace's disappearing act (which he's done in the past as well) it's unlikely that MySpace will ever see a dime of the money, but that hasn't stopped the company from touting this as the largest ever award under CAN SPAM. Amusingly, the extremely short court ruling also bars Wallace from setting up any new MySpace profiles. It doesn't say anything about Facebook, though, so perhaps that's where we'll see him next...
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Filed Under: can spam, fines, sanford wallace, social networks, spam, spamford, walter rines
Companies: myspace


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  • identicon
    Jailhouse, 13 May 2008 @ 6:58pm

    Can't one be arrested

    Can't one be arrested and imprisoned for unpaid fines?

    Next time he shows up, throw him in jail and keep him there for unpaid fines.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Evil Mike, 14 May 2008 @ 7:04am

      Re: Can't one be arrested

      "Can't one be arrested and imprisoned for unpaid fines?

      Next time he shows up, throw him in jail and keep him there for unpaid fines."

      What a terrible concept.

      One could jail anybody for anything; simply by making sure they get more fines than they'll ever be able to pay and then getting them jailed for not paying them.

      [SARCASM]That's not a step towards being able to totally control your population... not at all.[/SARCASM]

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    steveballmer, 13 May 2008 @ 7:02pm

    Congratulations

    At least you won!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2008 @ 7:07pm

      Re: Congratulations

      >At least you won!
      You forgot "A new Black 3G iPhone."

      How's that ZunePhone coming, Steve-o?
      I can't wait for WWDC.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2008 @ 7:25pm

    D.B. Cooper FTW

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jadler, 13 May 2008 @ 8:01pm

    haha lol

    i thought that this was a spam thing at first lol i hate myspace. "give us ur info and we'll notify you of when your friends are acting stupid lol"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Thom, 13 May 2008 @ 8:07pm

    IRS

    Since MySpace knows the debt is uncollectable they need to write it off and notify the IRS that Spamford and partner profitted by that amount before the pair have a chance to file for bankruptcy and discharge the debt. Spamford can't hide forever and tax evasion can put him in prison unlike failure to pay that judgement to MySpace.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Matt, 13 May 2008 @ 8:16pm

    Great

    > It doesn't say anything about Facebook, though, so perhaps that's where we'll see him next...

    Stop giving him ideas!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Website, 13 May 2008 @ 9:45pm

    Stop Spam

    All spammers will stop sending Spam when no one opens a spam email. Short and simple solution.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2008 @ 12:53am

    MySpace has a worldwide network of 'informants' perhaps they should offer a reward of say 1% of the damages they actually recover (to MySpace members of course) for the location of Mr Wallace...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Thom, 14 May 2008 @ 4:13am

    Haha, I love that idea AC

    MySpace can sponsor a 2 Million dollar (or 1% of actual recovery) "Where's Wallace" contest. Forget looking for that Waldo character....

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rich Kulawiec, 14 May 2008 @ 4:19am

    One again, proving the maxim that...

    ...there is no such as an ex-spammer. Not so far, at least: there are zero recorded cases.

    A quibble with the description, though: what Spamford does isn't "scammy marketing techniques"; it's abuse. It's merely clothed in marketing in order to persuade the gullible and naive that it has some legitimate basis.

    Here's an analogy, which I've often use to counter the misleading, vacuous "free speech" arguments made by spam-supporting parasites: if I print out the Bill of Rights, wrap it around a brick, and throw it through your living room window, that's not free speech: that's vandalism. Or if I show up in front of your house with a 50,000-watt PA and proceed to read the Bill of Rights out loud at 3 AM, that's not free speech: it's disturbing the peace. Similarly, what Spamford and Rines and all the other spammers, scammers, phishers, spyware installers, etc. do isn't marketing: it's abuse. The "marketing", if any, is incidental and irrelevant.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      eze, 14 May 2008 @ 9:14am

      Re: One again, proving the maxim that...

      I dont think about spam as disturbing the peace.
      THEy dont booter me any more, I use GMAIL, and bever have to think about spam again . spam? what is this?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Bubba, 14 May 2008 @ 7:29am

    "Next time he shows up, throw him in jail and keep him there for unpaid fines."

    What a terrible concept."

    No, just do nothing and let him continue to amass wealth by being a scumbag.(sarcasm) It is not just a case of not paying fines, he is so arrogant he is now refusing to even show up in court. And yes (not so)Evil Mike, if you amass wealth by harassing or scamming people you should be tossed in jail when you choose to disappear to avoid penalties.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Sanford Wallace, 14 May 2008 @ 9:10am

    FREE VIAGRA

    No doctors prescription required!!

    100% Effective, keep her going for 10 HOURS+

    She'll love these blue pills, just like smarties...

    Buy online at www.F&CKSPAM.com

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Patrick Jones, 14 May 2008 @ 9:38am

    Kettle, Pot, Pot, Kettle

    This is very funny coming from myspace considering their humble spam and junk mail beginnings.

    Yeah, they are hypocrites considering they themselves went over to friendster.com to spam the users all to get the friendster.com users to come over to myspace.com.

    The sources are out there if you want to go find them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    allen, 19 May 2008 @ 1:51am

    Major blow for spammers

    This is a heavy blow for commercial spammers and they may slow down their activity after this whooping fine amount.Only a few anti spam techniques techniques have succeeded in the battle with spammers and one of them is Abaca’s ReceiverNet service. ReceiverNet characterizes each protected user based on the percentage of spam they receive and then uses those reputations to rate the incoming message flow. ReceiverNet is effective in protecting against existing and future spam techniques. For more information log on to http://abaca.com/.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    John Smith, 27 May 2008 @ 2:11am

    Those spammers should be jailed

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    RJJNYC, 7 Nov 2010 @ 12:26pm

    "It doesn't say anything about Facebook, though, so perhaps that's where we'll see him next..."

    Close - he's now behind a relentless spam operation on youtube, e.g. see:

    http://www.youtube.com/user/jackie40heath
    http://www.networksolutions.com/whois-search/ezmp 3grab.com

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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