Facebook has welcomed a US court ruling against spammers who were ordered to pay $US873 million ($A1.38 billion) in damages for sending unwanted messages to users of the popular social network.
Max Kelly, Facebook's director of security, called the ruling by Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court in San Jose, California, an "important victory for our users - and against spam and those who create it."
Fogel on Friday ordered spammer Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital to pay $US436.2 million ($A687.5 million) in statutory damages and another $US436.2 million ($A687.52 million) in aggravated statutory damages for violations of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM).
"Does Facebook expect to quickly collect $US873 million ($A1.38 billion) dollars and share the proceeds in some way with our users?" asked Kelly in a posting on the Facebook blog. "Alas, no. It's unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honour the judgment rendered against them.
"But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users," he added.
"Everyone who participates constructively in Facebook should feel confident that we are fighting hard to protect you against spam and other online nuisances," Kelly said.
"We will continue to invest in this area by improving our technical safeguards and devoting significant resources to finding, exposing and prosecuting the sources of spam attacks."
Judge Fogel also permanently barred Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital from having any contact with Facebook in the future.
The judgment was the largest since a pair of accused spammers, Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, were ordered in May by another California court to pay $US230 million ($A362.52 million) to MySpace.