Yahoo has won a lawsuit against spammers who made use of its name in a non-existent lottery, and was awarded $610 million damages in a default judgment. A default judgment is entered when defendants fail to plead or defend a legal action, which in this case included individuals from Thailand and Nigeria, as well as corporations based in Taiwan and Nigeria.

As reported by InfoWorld, the lawsuit was filed in May 2008 against a number of individuals and companies for allegedly sending out phishing email messages crafted to trick recipients into divulging their personal and financial information. Yahoo charged that this information was used to commit fraud or sold to other criminals.

Of course, it's unlikely that Yahoo will ever see a single cent of the awarded damages, given that none of the defendants even responded to Yahoo's complaint. For its part, Yahoo says it embarked on the lawsuit not for financial gain, but for the purpose of protecting its brand name.

In a statement, Christian Dowell, the company's legal director of global brand protection, said: "Yahoo takes the protection of its users and its brand very seriously. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that users continue to trust Yahoo as the leading U.S. email provider."

For more:
- check out this article at InfoWorld
- check out this article at BBC

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