Facebook gets $711 million damages in anti-spam case

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, delivers a keynote address at the company's annual conference in San Francisco, California July 23, 2008.

(Reuters) - Social networking website Facebook was awarded $711.2 million in damages relating to an anti-spam case against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace, court documents show.

Wallace did not oppose the motion or appear at the hearing on September 18, 2009, according to a filing on Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court.

The site filed an anti-spamming case against Wallace in February for accessing people's Facebook accounts without their permission and sending phony mail and posts to the individuals' public message wall, the company said in a blog post.

"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent," Facebook said in a blog post.

Wallace did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment. His email address was obtained from the court documents.

The case is In re Facebook Inc. vs. Sanford Wallace, et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. C 09-798 JF.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore, editing by Will Waterman)