Facebook, the world's most popular social networking website, was
awarded $US711 million ($780 million) in damages against a spammer
who gained access to users' accounts and sent fake messages.

Sanford Wallace had sent unsolicited mass emails to users, tricking many of them into divulging their log-in information or redirecting them to websites that paid him for each visit, Facebook claimed.

"Wallace wilfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct," said US District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, California, in a court order.

The company asked for more than $7 billion in damages in the case, filed in February. It doesn't expect to receive a "vast majority" of the award against Wallace, according to a blog posting on Facebook's website.

Facebook claimed that Wallace, who did not contest the suit, committed more than 14 million violations of the federal Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act.

Judge Fogel also issued a permanent injunction prohibiting Wallace from access to Facebook.

The company's blog said the court had also referred Wallace to the US Attorney's Office for prosecution for criminal contempt of court, under which he could face jail.

Wallace earned the nicknames "Spam King" and "Spamford" as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk emails a day in the 1990s.

In May 2008, MySpace won a $US230 million judgment over junk messages sent to its members when a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled against Wallace and his partner, Walter Rines, in another case brought under the CAN-SPAM Act.

In 2006, Wallace was fined $US4 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused him of running an operation that infected computers with "spyware" which caused flurries of pop-up ads.

"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals," said Sam O'Rourke, associate general counsel for Facebook, in a blog.

In November 2008, Facebook won an $873 million judgment against a spammer who sent sexually explicit messages.