31 October 2009

Facebook Spammers Massive Fine

If you are an Internet marketer and you have been tempted to use Spam big time to try to improve your income from your online marketing activities then the message from a recent court case in the US is - don't. Not unless you have very very deep pockets and a really fat wallet.

A US District Court Judge in San Jose recently awarded the social-networking giant Facebook $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case filed against online marketer Sanford Wallace - known as the "Spam King." In addition to financial damages Sanford Wallace may face jail time. This is not the first time that Wallace has had judgment against him for spamming as he already owes $234 million to MySpace.

Many commenters however say that the federal court's decision this week probably won't act as much of a deterrent to future spamming of social networks.

Wallace was found guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act and the social networking site is hoping a separate criminal action will eventually send him to jail for gaining access to users' accounts without permission and sending unsolicited mass junk e-mail.

The ruling will send a severe warning to the major spammers out there that they could face severe consequences when they are caught spamming. Like others though I have my doubts if this will make a major dent into the problem of Spam. The spammers always like to think they are one step ahead of us and the sites and spam filters that we now all use. This action may cause them to pause and regroup and come up with other ways of spamming us but its unlikely to stop the problem. I guess that for as long as there is "online Viagra" there will be spammers.