• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, December 7, 2011

Yahoo Wednesday said it was awarded a $610 million default judgment against spammers in connection with a fake Yahoo lottery email scheme. The scam involved messages sent to Internet users to trick them into believing they had won a lottery prize offered by Yahoo in order to obtain credit card data and other personal information.

In the case dating back to 2008, a New York federal court judge found the scammers jointly and severally liable as participants in a conspiracy under New York common law. The judgment handed down Monday comprised statutory damages for trademark infringement of $27 million, and an award for violation of the CAN-SPAM Act in the amount of $583 million. Yahoo was also awarded attorneys’ fees.