Spammers to pay MySpace $6 million

Spammers to pay MySpace $6 million
In a significant win for the popular social networking Web site, an Internet marketer who'd been accused of spamming MySpace users is now in the dock and liable to pay the Web site a whopping $6 million in damages and other charges.

Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Colorado-based Media Breakaway, will have to pay MySpace $4.8 million in damages plus $1.2 million in attorney fees for allegedly having bombarded MySpace users with unsolicited advertisements. The arbitrator has also ruled that Media Breakaway and its employees be banned from MySpace hereon.

While MySpace had alleged that some of the messages were sent out from accounts hijacked by phishing, Richter and company countered that these were sent by rogue business affiliates and independent contractors posing for Media Breakaway. In fact, Richter and company went a step further in celebrating the fact that the arbitrator had awarded MySpace 95 per cent less than the amount originally demanded by the company.

The latest ruling might look pale in comparison to the one last month wherein MySpace was awarded $230 million in damages, payable by the accused -- two Internet marketers named Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines but MySpace is banking on it in its fight against spammers. As Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer of MySpace says, "MySpace has essentially declared a war on spam and phishing on our site".