Facebook awarded 711 million dollars in spam damages

San Francisco - Spam king Sanford Wallace has been ordered to pay 711 million dollars in damages for bombarding Facebook members with unwanted messages, the social networking site said Friday. The award was made at the San Jose District Court on Thursday, according to the announcement. Facebook claimed that Wallace's emails tricked many recipients into giving him their login information, or redirecting them to sites that paid him for each visit. It said that Wallace committed 14 million violations of US anti-spam laws and had sought 7 billion in damages.

"This is another important victory in our fight against spam," said Facebook. "While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals."

In addition to the damages, Wallace was also banned from accessing Facebook and slapped with a criminal contempt of court charge, which means he now faces possible jail time.

Wallace was previously fined 230 million dollars last year for sending junk messages to MySpace members.