MySpace Wins $234M Suit Against Spammers

by Jarrett Martineau | May 13, 2008 at 05:18 pm | 641 views | 13 comments

Facebook has had its own set of problems, but nothing on the scale of the 735,000+ spam messages sent to members on MySpace.

My own account was so inundated with it that I refused to check my account on MySpace for months and have only recently braved opening my Inbox, still wary of the abundance of hoax messages it had previously contained.

In this spam-heavy period, I'm sure many users jumped ship to Facebook simply to get away from the noise. I know I did.

Although MySpace's legal victory against spammers, today, provides a subtle deterrant to would-be future spam kings, it can't delete the huge backlog of annoying spamtastic messages that have clogged up our online communications for too long already.

The popular online hangout MySpace has won a $234 million judgment over junk messages sent to its members in what is believed to be the largest anti-spam award ever, The Associated Press has learned.
A federal judge ruled against two of the Internet's most prominent spam defendants, Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, after the two failed to show up at a court hearing.

Wallace has earned the nicknames "Spamford" and "spam king" for his past role as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s.

"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."

Rines and Wallace worked in concert to create their own MySpace accounts or take over existing ones by stealing passwords, Nigam said.

They then e-mailed other MySpace members, he said, "asking them to check out a cool video or another cool site. When you go there, they were making money trying to sell you something or making money based on hits or trying to sell ring tones."

MySpace said the pair sent 735,925 messages to MySpace members. Under the 2003 federal anti-spam law known as CAN-SPAM, each violation entitles MySpace to $100 in damages, tripled when conducted "willfully and knowingly."

It's a big victory for MySpace, although service providers often have a tough time collecting such awards. But even if the News Corp.-owned site never collects, it hopes the judgment will deter other spammers.

"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."

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SOLARLIFE

at 01:07 on May 14th, 2008

good stuff:

Jarrett Martineau, I like this story. Good news stop spam, fake lottery wins, 419scam

strandmatte

at 02:48 on May 14th, 2008

Certain days I receive 50 and more Myspace Friend Requests. Are these real friends ?

strandmatte has contributed a photo to this story.

texburgher

at 03:45 on May 14th, 2008

Many months after having set my profile to "private," I still get multitudes of these bogus friend requests daily. Because of this, I am closing my myspace account this month.

texburgher has contributed a photo to this story.

a bill miller

at 04:47 on May 14th, 2008

I found this message when I was checking some of the sources of visits to my blog and website. It seems that this screen comes up if you click the links on my MySpace profile and bulletins. I don't think it has stopped any of my visitors, but its was funny none the less. Eventually I'll work it back into my spam related wesite:
http://www.master-list2000.com

a bill miller has contributed a photo to this story.

boycat

at 06:43 on May 14th, 2008

Making fun of a Charter Communications TV commercial about spam where a customer opening and reading spam says "Ooo! Who's Nouku!?" excitedly.

Spam is such a nuisance to begin with, and MySpace has needed a ground-up redesign (technically) for quite some time. Especially their messaging engines.

boycat has contributed a photo to this story.

The Blue Girl

at 07:43 on May 14th, 2008

Spammers

The Blue Girl has contributed a photo to this story.

azzayindia

at 08:14 on May 14th, 2008

good stuff:

Jarrett Martineau, I like this story. It's good stuff.

i too had a lot of problem in my mail box.mr nigam way to go.Now use that money to improve myspace

tapehands

at 09:34 on May 14th, 2008

Spammers should at least be consistent with their naming schemes. It's sad when you have to call them out on it.

tapehands has contributed a photo to this story.

jordan

at 10:02 on May 14th, 2008

The problem is that spammers can generate income with very little effort, and only the very few will actually get caught.

king of the cheese vampires

at 10:14 on May 14th, 2008

It's actually pretty amazing, the broad spectrum of spam that is out there. No matter who you are, you're liable to phishing targeted at you. Especially if you are an elderly person new to the internet, or just gullible.

king of the cheese vampires has contributed a photo to this story.

Robert Reyesunshine

at 11:03 on May 14th, 2008

the "about me" for this spam was too funny. i knew i'd have to share it.

"binocyles walks"?

Robert Reyesunshine has contributed a photo to this story.

the mia

at 18:09 on May 14th, 2008

Dealing with emails like this can seriously deflate you, no matter what your mood is when you see them. MANY, if not all, of my female friends encounter messages like this on a daily basis. DAILY. People do not realize the power they have by sending these. Maybe they do and they're exercising that power by disturbing good people with derogatory emails.

the mia has contributed a photo to this story.

SoapyToboggans

at 22:53 on May 17th, 2008

I stopped receiving a lot of spam when I chose the option to not have MySpace display that I am online.