Social networking site Facebook has been awarded a huge $711m (£430m) by a Californian court, following a judgement against professional spammer Sanford Wallace.
The court found Wallace guilty of breaking the Californian Can-Spam Act by sending false or misleading marketing emails.Today a San Jose court awarded Facebook $711m in damages against Sanford Wallace, one of the spammers who accessed people's accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages," said Sam O'Rourke, lead council for litigation and intellectual property at Facebook, in a blog post.
"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals."
The case reached court in March, and Facebook is keen that the ruling and punishment will result in less spam for its users.
"Most notably, the judge referred Wallace to the US Attorney's Office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that, in addition to the judgement, he now faces possible jail time," said O'Rourke.
"This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers."
Facebook was awarded $873m (£528m) in November last year after a judgement against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital. O'Rourke said that Guerbuez had been sending sleazy messages to Facebook users.
Facebook users are facing yet another malware attack this week, after security experts warned of a new phishing scam with a nasty payload.
Email hosting provider AppRiver said that the Zbot, or Zeus, botnet is delivering 30,000 messages a minute, and warned users to take extra care with unsolicited emails.
"We have already seen about 1.65 million messages from this campaign. As we've come to expect from Zbot, the phishing email is well crafted and could easily trick the unsuspecting recipient into falling for its ruse," Fred Touchette, a senior security analyst at AppRiver, said in a blog post.
"The graphics are well done and all look like something you would see from Facebook. The email informs users that Facebook is updating their log-in system to 'make things more secure', and urges people to click on the update button in the email.
"This should be enough anyone needs to see, considering that Facebook, your bank or anyone else, doesn't need every one of their users' participation in order to update their product."
Clicking on the link leads to a genuine-looking Facebook login screen that asks for the user's password. Another screen then asks them to download an update tool, which is actually the Zeus Trojan that typically targets bank accounts.
"Stay away from these emails. Zeus or Zbot spares no effort in making their attacks appear to be genuine. It is very important to protect yourself by being vigilant," said Touchette.
"If you don't personally know the sender, I would avoid clicking any links in emails, especially when the term 'your account' appears anywhere in the email."
This is the second phishing attack on Facebook users in as many days, following the discovery yesterday of a widespread attempt to trick users into giving away password and login details.
The court found Wallace guilty of breaking the Californian Can-Spam Act by sending false or misleading marketing emails.Today a San Jose court awarded Facebook $711m in damages against Sanford Wallace, one of the spammers who accessed people's accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages," said Sam O'Rourke, lead council for litigation and intellectual property at Facebook, in a blog post.
"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals."
The case reached court in March, and Facebook is keen that the ruling and punishment will result in less spam for its users.
"Most notably, the judge referred Wallace to the US Attorney's Office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that, in addition to the judgement, he now faces possible jail time," said O'Rourke.
"This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers."
Facebook was awarded $873m (£528m) in November last year after a judgement against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital. O'Rourke said that Guerbuez had been sending sleazy messages to Facebook users.
Facebook users are facing yet another malware attack this week, after security experts warned of a new phishing scam with a nasty payload.
Email hosting provider AppRiver said that the Zbot, or Zeus, botnet is delivering 30,000 messages a minute, and warned users to take extra care with unsolicited emails.
"We have already seen about 1.65 million messages from this campaign. As we've come to expect from Zbot, the phishing email is well crafted and could easily trick the unsuspecting recipient into falling for its ruse," Fred Touchette, a senior security analyst at AppRiver, said in a blog post.
"The graphics are well done and all look like something you would see from Facebook. The email informs users that Facebook is updating their log-in system to 'make things more secure', and urges people to click on the update button in the email.
"This should be enough anyone needs to see, considering that Facebook, your bank or anyone else, doesn't need every one of their users' participation in order to update their product."
Clicking on the link leads to a genuine-looking Facebook login screen that asks for the user's password. Another screen then asks them to download an update tool, which is actually the Zeus Trojan that typically targets bank accounts.
"Stay away from these emails. Zeus or Zbot spares no effort in making their attacks appear to be genuine. It is very important to protect yourself by being vigilant," said Touchette.
"If you don't personally know the sender, I would avoid clicking any links in emails, especially when the term 'your account' appears anywhere in the email."
This is the second phishing attack on Facebook users in as many days, following the discovery yesterday of a widespread attempt to trick users into giving away password and login details.
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