MySpace Wins $230m Payout From Spammers

MySpace has won a record $230m (£118m) legal judgment over junk messages sent to its members by a team of notorious American internet spammers.

"Spam king" Sanford Wallace and business partner Walter Rines have been ordered to pay unprecedented damages to the social networking website - amounting to the strongest punishment ever handed out to a spammer in the US.

A court in Los Angeles heard how Wallace and Rines sent more than 700,000 messages to MySpace users, fooling them into visiting gambling sites or adult-rated pages. Disguised as comments from the user's friends, the notes in fact contained advertisements that made the pair a small fee every time somebody clicked on them.

Although evidence suggested that the pair made about $500,000 from their activities, district judge Audrey Collins used the terms of America's CAN-SPAM Act, which can levy up to $300 for each infringement of the law, in setting damages.

Wallace has long been one of the world's most high-profile junk marketers, earning the nickname "Spamford" for his recurring trouble with the law. In the 1990s he progressed from circulating fax messages to sending internet spam and rose to prominence as the head of Philadelphia-based spam giant Cyber Promotions.

The two men, who failed to turn up at court for the judgment, were also banned from similar activities in the future.

Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said: "MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site. We remain committed to punishing those who violate the law and try to harm our members."