US: man sentenced to two and a half years in prison for spamming Facebook users

A US citizen has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison and has been ordered to pay 310,628.55 in restitution for sending over 27 million spam messages to Facebook users. According to the Office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of California, the man illegally obtained, stored, and exploited Facebook user accounts information and earned money by directing users to other websites. The scheme, which was executed between November 2008 and March 2009, compromised approximately 500 000 legitimate Facebook accounts.