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Facebook ‘Spam King’ pleads guilty, faces 3 years in jail

No one likes receiving unwanted messages, and one man was responsible for sending 27 million of them to Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) users. He could be fined up to $250,000 United States dollars and sentenced up to 3 years in jail.

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US Attorney Melinda Haag said Sanford Wallace of Las Vegas admitted to having accessed around 500,000 Facebook accounts between November 2008 and February 2009. In a case levied against him and his partner Walter Rimes, Myspace won $234 million over similar spam sent to the website’s users.

The defendant collected login details for Facebook accounts using phishing messages.

Admitting his role in a California court yesterday, Sanford “Spam King” Wallace (47) sent unsolicited ads disguised as posts, according to AP.

At the end of a two-year FBI investigation, a grand jury did press criminal charges and charged him with electronic mail fraud, damage to protected computers and criminal contempt.

Sentencing will take place on December 7, and this time around it seems likely that Wallace will be severely punished.

Wallace admitted Monday that he fraudulently gained access to the Facebook accounts and later violated a court order to stay away from the popular computer network.

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Wallace’s lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

Facebook spam king admits sending over 27 million messages