Guess Who Facebook's Just Sued For Spam?

from the the-usual-suspects dept

Last year, when MySpace won an uncollectable judgment against well-known spammer Stanford "Spamford" Wallace, part of the punishment was that he wasn't allowed to set up any more MySpace profiles. Mike noted at the time that it didn't say anything about Facebook, speculating that's where Spamford might pop up next. So guess who Facebook's just sued for sending spam Facebook messages? Yep, ol' Spamford and a couple of his pals. Facebook alleges they used phishing attacks to break into users' accounts, then sent messages to their contacts. It sounds pretty similar to the previous MySpace case, and it's hard to imagine it won't end up the same way: Wallace disappearing, Facebook getting a default judgment with an uncollectable judgment, and Spamford moving on to the next big social site.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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MySpace Wins Against Spamford Wallace Who Has Disappeared (Once Again)

from the old-habits-die-hard dept

Remember Sanford "Spamford" Wallace? Back in the 90s, he was the face of the proud spammer. He was quoted widely and proclaimed himself the spam king (which he insisted was legal). That was great until the law caught up to him and he claimed he reformed. For a little while he went into the nightclub business, which didn't work out. So, he jumped on the next big thing: spyware. A $4 million fine later, and he apparently moved on to spamming MySpace, setting up 11,000 fake profiles that redirected visitors to various marketing websites.

MySpace sued him for this and a judge has ruled in the company's favor, in large part because Wallace pretty much ignored the case. At first he procrastinated and gave excuses, and then just stopped responding altogether. This isn't the first time this has happened, either. With that whole spyware case a few years back, even Wallace's lawyer admitted that Wallace had disappeared entirely. Sense a pattern? Wallace seems to jump on any sort of scheming online marketing scam, and when the law finally catches up to him, he runs and hides. Somehow, I doubt that MySpace will collect on any money the court awards it.

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