Judge: Spammer owes Facebook $711 million

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled in San Jose, Calif., Thursday that Sanford Wallace must pay Facebook after employing compromised user accounts to send out 14 million junk e-mails to the Web site's members, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Fogel, who had already slapped a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against Wallace, said this week that Wallace had violated the so-called CAN-SPAM law "with blatant disregard" for the rights of Facebook and its members.

The newspaper said Fogel also referred Wallace to the U.S. Justice Department for possible contempt of court charges for not showing up at Thursday's hearing.

Wallace filed for bankruptcy in June after Facebook rival MySpace won a $234 million judgment against him and fellow Internet marketer Walter Rines, the Chronicle said.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International.