Threat Management

Spammers forced to cough up $3 million to Facebook

Facebook has been awarded $3 million in damages following a five-year case against now defunct Power Ventures and its CEO, Steve Vachani.

Power Ventures was found liable for violating the CAN-SPAM Act and Facebook was ultimately awarded $50 for each of 60,627 pieces of spam email purportedly sent from Facebook. The spam was manipulative in that it was said to come from “The Facebook Team” and from facebookmail.com.

The social media giant opened a case against Power Ventures in December 2008 and it dragged on for years. Throughout the proceedings, Facebook filed charges of copyright infringement, which were heard and eventually dismissed. Everything came to a halt in 2012 when Vachani filed for bankruptcy, but this year the claim fell through.

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