A Federal judge in Los Angeles ruled in favor of MySpace, awarding the social networking site $230 million judgment related to junk messages sent to its members, according to a report.

The judge awarded what is believed to be the largest anti-spam award ever under the 2003 federal law nicknamed CAN-SPAM. Losing the case were Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, MySpace told the Associated Press Tuesday.

MySpace is owned by News Corp. It won the verdict after Wallace and Rines failed to show in court.

MySpace said in court documents that the pair sent more than 730,000 messages to the Internet service, making them look as if they were coming from trusted friends. The law entitles MySpace to $100 in damages. That amount is tripled when the act is done willfully and knowingly, AP says.

Hundreds of user complained and resulted in bandwidth and delivery costs to MySpace. The message even included links to Web sites containing adult material, the company said.

Service providers often have difficulty collecting such awards, but the ruling could serve as a deterrent.