Facebook awarded $711 million in damages by a San Jose

Today Facebook reported they’ve been awarded $711 million in damages by a San Jose, CA court against Sanford Wallace, the notorious “Spam King” that MySpace also successfully went after last year to the tune of a $234 million judgment.

Back in March, Facebook won an injunction against three spammers who sent unwanted messages and made abusive wall posts on the site. The temporary restraining order placed criminal consequences on their continuing actions, but the legal battle wasn’t over just yet.

Seven hundred eleven million dollars is a lot of dough. But amazingly, it’s not the highest judgment levied under the CAN-SPAM Act, a piece of legislation that contains tough penalties for violations surrounding commercial email and message sending. That honor also belongs to Facebook (Facebook), who in November of 2008 won an $873 million victory against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital.

More than being about the monetary figure though, especially considering the difficulty of actually extracting the cash from the defendants, is the deterrent effect these judgments will hopefully have on future would-be spammers. Facebook implores its users to help stop the scourge by using the “Report This” links throughout the site when you spot the evil stuff.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt favors net neutrality, but only to a point

"It is possible for the government to screw the Internet up, big-time," he said. Google is strong enough as a company to weather any possible outcome on the issue, he said. But what he worries about "is the next start-up."

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt favors net neutrality, but only to a point: While the tech player wants to make sure that telecommunications giants don't steer Internet traffic in a way that would favor some devices or services over others, he also believes that it would be a terrible idea for the government to involve itself as a regulator of the broader Internet.

Thursday marked a milestone in the debate over net neutrality, as the Federal Communications Commission voted to move forward on how the government will police access to the Internet, but Schmidt was in town in his role as a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He also sat down for an hour-long conversation with reporters and editors at The Washington Post.

"I spend so much time in Washington now because of the work that I've been doing, I deal with all these people who make assertions without fact," he said. Policy people "will hand me some report that they wrote or they'll make some assertion, and I'll say, 'Well, is that true?' -- and they can't prove it."

With Google's vast power for capturing and remembering data, Schmidt painted a picture in which technology could help quantify and verify the assertions made in policy documents. "Government is highly measurable, most of it," he said. "We can actually see how many people got this shot or read this report or so forth. A government -- a transparent government -- should be able to [measure] that."

As for Google's relationship with Washington's power structure, Schmidt said the tech industry is still not as strong as others in its lobbying representation on Capitol Hill, but that that's fine with him. Google, and the tech industry, does better for itself when it focuses on ideas and innovation -- and not politics, he said.

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

US President Barak Obama is awarded for his ‘extraordinary efforts in international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples, said the Nobel Committee at a press conference broadcast through the webcam. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, announced the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo on Friday.
“The committee has attached importance to his vision for a world without nuclear weapons,” said the Nobel Committee.

The committee argued that Obama contributed a lot in achieving peace by strengthening diplomacy and through negotiations to solve the nuclear issue.

“International diplomacy has regained certain position, the emphasis on the role that the UN and all the international institutions can play, dialogue and negotiations are referred as instrument of solving the most difficult conflict,” said the committee.

“He is awarded for what he is trying to do, and what he is doing,” answered the Nobel Committee facing the question that what Obama has done hasn’t resulted in any concrete achievements.

Facing journalists’ doubtful questions, the Nobel Committee insisted that Obama was awarded for his ‘attitude’, for ‘what he is trying to do’ and ‘what he is doing’.

Analysts hold that such an award is out of a strong wish to get rid of nuclear weapons and threats from the Nobel Peace Committee which puts high expectations from Obama.

48 years old Obama graduated from Harvard University and was senior lecturer in Law at University of Chicago Law School. He became president of the USA in January.

The winners of Nobels for medicine, physics, chemistry and literature have been announced in the previous days and the economic prize will be announced next Monday.

The Nobel prizes have been awarded annually since 1901 to those who "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind during the preceding year."

The prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out on Dec. 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.

Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.41 million U.S. dollars).

(refer from:http://english.people.com.cn)