In the light of recent anti-spam measures being taken place, and with some new laws being enacted throughout the United States several of the country’s most notorious spammers have suddenly been cast into the spotlight. Unfortunately for them, this spotlight usually comes with some harsh repercussions such as costly fines, bankruptcy, and possibly even criminal charges.

Take for instance the case of Sanford Wallace, also known as “Spamford” Wallace or the self-proclaimed “Spam King”. Wallace first made his impact on the World Wide Web in 1995, though his email spam operations date back even further than that with his involvement in junk fax marketing, which has been outlawed since 1991. When Wallace formed a company known as Cyber Promotions in 1995, however, he did so with the sole intent of taking over the online spam market. And it wasn’t long before Sanford Wallace and Cyber Promotions became the industry’s number one source of spam emails.

Of course this quickly caught the attention of some of the biggest names on the internet – and unless you are being shown in a favorable light, all of that attention is not a good thing. This prompted Wallace to announce his retirement from the spam industry in 1998, though several lawsuits would soon follow.

In late 2004 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a suit against Wallace regarding his distribution of malicious software. In 2006 he was convicted of similar charges that were once again brought forth by the FTC, and he and his co-defendants were charged over $5 million. In March of 2007 charges were filed by MySpace regarding phishing and spamming, and Wallace was found guilty and ordered to pay $230 million; Sanford Wallace failed to appear for the court trial.