The US court has ordered a spammer using details from Facebook to pay $436.2 million in damages.
A spam distributor who plagued Facebook users and their friends with spam emails has been fined by a judge in San Jose, California.
The judge ordered Adam Guerbuez and his company, Atlantis Blue Capital, to pay $436.2 million (£289.5 million) to Facebook for statutory damages and a further $436.2 million for violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, which prohibits the sending of emails with misleading information in the header.
Facebook’s security director Max Kelly stated: "We are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users."
He added that the site is dedicated to tackling "spam and other online nuisances".
Mr Guerbuez was barred from using Facebook’s services and contacting its members permanently.
In other spam news, today Telegraph.co.uk reported on a survey undertaken by comScore M:Metrics on behalf of Airwide Solutions which found that increasing numbers of mobile users are receiving spam messages.
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