A spammer will pay $711 million in damages to Facebook

 On Thursday the social networking giant Facebook was granted by the court $711 million in damages in an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace.

The social networking company sued Wallace for his illicit activity of accessing users’ profiles without their permission and sending fake posts and messages. Apart from the damages award the San Jose, Calif., court referred Wallace to the U.S. Attorney's office for prosecution for criminal contempt of court - meaning he could face imprisonment.

In the 1990s Wallace was a head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day and thus he was given monikers "Spam King" and "Spamford".

"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," said Sam O'Rourke, associate general counsel for Facebook, in a blog posting Thursday. "This is another important victory in our fight against spam."

The company said the judgment marks the second-largest anti-spam award ever. In November 2008, Facebook won an $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital, who bombarded users with sexually explicit spam messages.