"King of Spam" arrested
American Sanford Wallace sent 27 million unwanted messages through Facebook servers.
247 – American Sanford Wallace, known as the “Spam King,” surrendered to authorities on Monday after being accused of organizing a scheme that sent approximately 27 million unsolicited messages on Facebook. According to the FBI, Wallace will face 11 charges, including fraud, intentional damage to a protected computer, and criminal disobedience for failing to comply with orders to stay away from social media. The “Spam King” is 43 years old and could face 40 years in prison.
The scheme involved the American himself creating a program designed to bypass Facebook's spam filters. With this option cleared, Wallace sent messages from a Facebook profile, encouraging users to visit a website, supposedly belonging to a friend.
When internet users followed Facebook's advice, they were forced to provide their emails and passwords and then redirected to an affiliate website that gave Wallace all the user's basic information. This information is included in the American's indictment. With this scam, the "Spam King" allegedly profited from the number of clicks, since affiliate marketing companies pay their members according to the number of hits they provide to the websites.
"Spamford" Wallace earned the nickname "King of Spam" for being the head of CyberPromotions, a company responsible for sending 30 million emails a day in the 90s, thus facing lawsuits from major internet companies at the time. Last week, Wallace was sued by Facebook and had to pay approximately US$711 million in damages to Mark Zuckerberg's social network. He was banned by the American courts from using social media.