It's pretty rare that a victory in a $230 million lawsuit is only a moral victory, but Myspace, which is owned by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), has won just such a case.The company sued Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines for spamming the social networking site's users with phishing schemes and links to websites offering merchandise for sale or paid advertising. A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in favor of MySpace after the con-men failed to show up for a hearing.
Why are the damages so high? CAN-SPAM, a 2003 law, entitled providers to $100 in damages for every spam message sent -- and the amount triples when the spam is sent "willfully and knowingly."
Perhaps this will send a message to would-be spammers that they shouldn't mess with MySpace. But the spammers are nowhere to be found, and it's hard to imagine that they have anything like $230 million to pay the judgment, or even the $4.7 million in attorneys fees that the judge awarded MySpace.
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