US District Judge Audrey B. Collins ruled in favor of MySpace in a Los Angeles Court, after accused spammers Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines failed to show up for the hearing.

It will no doubt be difficult for MySpace to collect on the money it is owed, spammers not being a fundamentally law-abiding sort. But the company, and its parent company News Corp, hope the ruling will send a message that may act as a deterrent to other would-be spammers.

Spammers, says MySpace want to avoid being prosecuted. And the company hopes spammers see Monday's ruling as a sign that they should pursue other venues.

Wallace is notorious for heading up the company Cyber Promotions in the 1990s. The company sent out up to 30 million messages a day, and faced lawsuits from major ISPs when he stepped down.

According to reports, Wallace and Rines created their own MySpace accounts or used phishing scams to steal other users' passwords. They sent mass messages to MySpace users telling them to check out "cool" websites, which would be selling typical spam-related wares, or telephone ring tones.

The two reportedly sent more than 730,000 spam messages to MySpace members, which may have appeared more legitimate because they were coming from within a network that would be inaccessible to the regular sources of spam. According to the CAN-SPAM act, MySpace is entitled to $100 in damages for every message, and triple that if the spamming was conducted "willfully and knowingly."

The $230 million ruling includes $157.4 million jointly against the two men, and $63.4 separately against Rines, under CAN-SPAM. It also involves $1.5 million against both men according to California phishing law and $4.7 in attorney fees.

MySpace also reportedly has another anti-spam case pending against another defendant, Scott Richter.

If MySpace actually does get its hands on the money, that would be considerably more than social networking rival Facebook, which is still acquiring its nine-figure dollar amounts through old-fashioned "borrowing," accoridng to a monday report.