US District Judge Audrey Collins awarded the online social networking site, MySpace, a judgment of approximately $230 million on Monday against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines for violating state anti-phishing and federal anti-spam law (CAN-SPAM), resulting in possibly the biggest historical anti-spam award.
Wallace is known for his involvement in past phishing and spyware litigation. He and Rines were not present for the court hearing regarding allegations that they committed phishing scams on MySpace.com in order to obtain passwords and then sent hundreds of thousands of email messages to members prompting them to go to other sites where Wallace and Rines made money from sales and hits. Violaters of the federal law are liable for $100 in damages per violation, which can be tripled if the violations were committed willfully and knowingly. MySpace claimed that the violations resulted in costs to the company, complaints from its members and potentially caused harm to minors from adult sites referred to in the emails.
