As social networking becomes a mainstay of communication, it also becomes a vehicle for spammers and hackers. But Facebook, for one, is not going to allow its platform to be used in that way.

bizjournals.com reported Friday that the popular social-networking site won a $711 million damage award recently against Internet marketer Sanford Wallace, who spammed Facebook users with "phony posts and messages." The award is the second-largest Facebook has won under the CAN-SPAM Act. Last year, the company was awarded $873 million against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital.

In a blog post Thursday, Facebook's Sam O'Rourke said:

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. 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.