Photo courtesy MySpace Chris DeWolfe is CEO and Co-Founder of MySpace image:39895:2::0

We wrote a great deal about MySpace's spam problem a month ago (see previous coverage) and now Associated Press tells the tale of sleazy subversion of MySpace profiles:

Rines and Wallace created their own MySpace accounts or took over existing ones by stealing passwords through "phishing" scams, Nigam ( Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer, MySpace) said.

They then e-mailed other MySpace members, he said, "asking them to check out a cool video or another cool site. When you (got) there, they were making money trying to sell you something or making money based on hits or trying to sell ring tones."

MySpace said the pair sent more than 730,000 messages to MySpace members, many made to look like they were coming from trusted friends, giving them an air of legitimacy. Under the 2003 federal anti-spam law known as CAN-SPAM, each violation entitles MySpace to $100 in damages, tripled when conducted "willfully and knowingly."

In court papers, MySpace said the activities resulted in bandwidth and delivery-related costs, along with complaints from hundreds of users. The company also said some of the outside Web sites contained adult material, potentially harming teens who use MySpace.

Sounds familiar to us. DigitalJournal.com Editor, Chris Hogg, and I may not be about to join monasteries on the basis of our MySpace experience, but it’s difficult to imagine the possible effects on a kid. The “Friend Requests” we got would have been bordering on pedophilia, for an underage kid.

Credit where it’s due. MySpace has followed up on its tough talk, and this is a win for the internet citizenry.

People have the right to avoid sleaze, if they want to avoid sleaze. MySpace has stood up for its members.

I’ve noticed that my Friend Requests from MySpace have dried up, recently, before I could make a full set of playing cards out of them.

Some people are talking down the result, and that needs a bit of clarification:

John Levine, a board member for the anti-spam advocacy group Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, said that past spam judgments he knows of have been in the tens of millions of dollars.

He said he would be surprised, though, if MySpace ever collected.

"The giant judgments are all defaults, which means they don't necessarily even know how to find the spammer," Levine said

.

Yeah, but the point is that case law is made out of things like this. $230 million is a big hit. It’s a precedent for future judgments.

Wallace and Rines have vanished, and good riddance.

MySpace can be justly proud of kicking some trashy butt that was clearly long overdue for it.