Wallace, who now faces a contempt of court charge, was responsible for 14.2 million violations of the spam act CAN-SPAM, according to a US District Judge.

"We applaud this court decision, in spite of the fact that Facebook probably won't connect much of the settlement", said Tom Kelchner of anti-malware company Sunbelt. Wallace was ordered to pay MySpace $234m last year. "At least, it should take one major, blatant spammer to bankruptcy."

In 2006, Wallace was also served with an injunction after infecting victims' machines with spyware on behalf of his clients, compromising them via websites that he operated which exploited Internet Explorer vulnerabilities.