MANILA, Philippines – Sanford Wallace, known in tech circles as Facebook’s “Spam King,” was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Tuesday, June 14.

He was also ordered to pay over $310,000 in fines for sending more than 27 million spam messages to Facebook users.

Wallace compromised some 500,000 Facebook accounts between November 2008 and March 2009. This was done through a phishing method wherein users would be sent links to websites that gathered the login details and friends lists of victims.

Wallace would then send users spam in the form of links to other websites. He would earn money by directing traffic in this manner. 

According to the US Department of Justice, Wallace also violated a court order “not to access or attempt to access Facebook’s computer network in any manner whatsoever nor create or maintain a Facebook account.”

He admitted to willfully disoberying the order by logging into Facebook while on board a flight from Las Vegas to New York. 

Wallace will begin serving his sentence on September 7, 2016. – Rappler.com