MySpace Spammers Fined $230 Million

Posted on May 14, 2008

publishing2.com

A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday ordered two Internet spammers to pay a record-breaking $230 million in fines after they sent more than 700,000 unsolicited advertisements to MySpace users. The amount is almost half what Rupert Murdoch spent to buy the social networking site in 2005.

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The Guardian:

A team of notorious American internet spammers has been fined a record $230m for bombarding MySpace users with adverts for pornography and gambling websites.

“Spam king” Sanford Wallace, along with his business partner Walter Rines, were yesterday 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 was fooled into clicking on them.

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