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On Thursday, Facebook won a victory for social-networking users everywhere. The U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., awarded Facebook $711 million in damages against Sanford Wallace, aka the spam king.

Facebook said Wallace, Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw broke the law by sending unwanted messages and wall posts to people on Facebook, violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the California Anti-Phishing Act, and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM).

"While we don't expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will act as a continued deterrent against these criminals," said Sam O'Rourke, general counsel on the Facebook legal team. "Most notably, the judge referred Wallace to the U.S. attorney's office with a request that Wallace be prosecuted for criminal contempt, which means that in addition to the judgment, he now faces possible jail time. This is another important victory in our fight against spam. We will continue to pursue damages against other spammers."

Not the First Time

Wallace is the self-proclaimed spam king -- and it's not the first time he has targeted social-networking sites. In 2008, MySpace won a $230 million judgment against Wallace in what was then thought to be the largest-ever spam case. Wallace and Walter Rines organized a phishing scam that harvested MySpace usernames and passwords and blasted out hundreds of thousands of messages for pornography and gambling sites.

"What is shocking to me was that Wallace has already been sued by MySpace previously. So it's great to see the justice system trying to remove the temptation for people to spam social networks -- but evidently, it's worth the risk," said Brad Shimmin, an analyst at Current Analysis. "Obviously since Wallace has done it before and is willing to take the risk of doing it elsewhere, it's a very...

With the Internet video-on-TV space heating up, Apple on Thursday introduced its new Apple TV 3.0 software. The update features a revamped main menu that takes better advantage of widescreen TVs and offers iTunes Extras, iTunes LP, Genius Mixes, and Internet radio.

iTunes Extras offer extra content to movie fans, such as interviews, interactive galleries, and deleted scenes. iTunes LP, which Apple describes as "the next evolution of the music album," combines live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos and album credits.

Free for Current Owners

Genius Mixes offers up to 12 "endless mixes" of songs that the application decides fit together automatically from the user's iTunes collection. Internet radio gives access to thousands of streaming, Internet-based radio stations, which can be marked as favorites.

The 3.0 release is free to current owners of the Apple TV box, and Apple is hoping the new interface and features will help spur sales of the product, which CEO Steve Jobs once reportedly described as "a hobby."

Released in 2007, the Apple TV box is struggling to remain relevant as Internet-based video content starts to show up on a variety of consumer electronic devices. Some industry observers, for instance, have noted that the new software only supports a maximum resolution of 720p at 24 frames per second, and the box remains primarily focused on delivering iTunes content.

Meanwhile, a stream of new announcements show that Internet-based video delivered to the TV is booming. Roku's $99 player streams Netflix and Amazon videos, and Sony announced this week that Netflix is now available via the PlayStation 3 video-game console. Netflix is also available at the gold level from Microsoft's Xbox Live, and there are reports that it will appear on Nintendo's Wii in the next year.

'True to Apple's Goals'

Netflix and Sony have also announced that the popular...

Apple and Palm continue to play a cat-and-mouse game, and this time it was Apple's turn to do the chasing. Apple on Thursday released an iTunes software update that once again blocks the Palm Pre smartphone from syncing DRM-free music, photos and videos from the iTunes Store.

Apple's iTunes 9.0.2 update is part of Apple's rollout of Apple TV version 3.0. The new iTunes comes with several new features and improvements including a new look and feel, easier browsing and navigation, and more flexibility with syncing, according to Apple.

While the update allows iPod and iPhone users to organize home screens directly in iTunes by allowing syncing of individual artists, genres or TV shows and Podcast episodes, it also once again wipes out the ability for Palm Pre users to sync iTunes files.

Chase Continues

The game between Apple and Palm has been going on since the launch of the Palm Pre in June. Once Palm released the Pre with the ability to sync iTunes songs and other files, Apple quickly retaliated and blocked the functionality with its iTunes 8.2.1 update, which blocked the Pre's ability to sync.

It didn't take long for Palm to respond with its own firmware update webOS 1.1, which re-enabled the Pre's sync function. "That's right -- you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos," wrote John Traynor in his blog in July.

The move only frustrated Apple executives, who made it clear there is only room for the iPod and iPhone in the iTunes Store.

Not only did Palm add the over-the-air update, but it also complained to the USB Implementers Forum, a nonprofit corporation created by the companies who founded the Universal Serial Bus specification. Palm complained to the USB-IF that Apple was abusing the principle of open gadget connectivity....