6 Aug 2011

"Spam King" accused of bombarding Facebook users

6:18 pm on 6 August 2011

A US man charged with sending more than 27 million spam messages to Facebook users has turned himself in.

Sanford Wallace, who is known as the "Spam King", surrendered to FBI agents in California reports the BBC.

Prosecutors allege he developed a program that breached Facebook spam filters and lured users to submit their account details.

Mr Wallace denies the charges, which carry prison sentences of up to 10 years.

He has been released on $US100,000 bail.

Prosecutors say Mr Wallace's program posted messages on Facebook users walls - purportedly from friends - urging users to visit a website where their account details were then harvested.

They were then redirected to an affiliate website that earned Wallace "substantial revenue", the charges say.

The program also retrieved lists of Facebook users' friends and posted spam messages on their walls, the indictment adds.

About 500,000 Facebook accounts were compromised between November 2008 and March 2009, leading to more than 27 million spam messages being sent, prosecutors said.

Mr Wallace, who is from Las Vegas, is charged with six counts of electronic mail fraud, three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt.