Last October, Facebook filed three lawsuits in a federal court in San Jose, California alleging that three individuals were “attempting to trick people on Facebook into signing up for mobile subscriptions and sending spam to their friends.”
According to an update on Facebook’s Security Blog, the decision came this week, kicking the offender off the site and awarding Facebook with more than $360 million in damages.
Facebook updated its blog this week, offering a couple details on the decision:
This week, a federal court awarded Facebook $360,500,000 in statutory damages and issued a permanent injunction kicking a known spammer, Philip Porembski, off Facebook for good. We’re pleased with the win, which is just another result in an ongoing enforcement effort.
According to security firm Sophos, Porembski “was alleged to have obtained the login details of at least 116,000 Facebook users, and sent more than 7.2 million spam messages to victims’ online friends.”
Sophos reports that Facebook received more than 8,000 user complaints in relation to Porembski’s efforts, with 4,500 deactivating their accounts as a result.
