Facebook has won a judgement worth over $360m against a spammer who hijacked Facebook accounts.

The company said that it had been successful in a legal case against Philip Porembski and had been awarded $360,500,000. The win means Facebook is currently owed nearly $2bn from spammers, but it is unlikely to see any actual return.

“Spam is certainly a big problem on Facebook, and it's good to see legal action being taken against the people behind it," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“Of course, a judgement is one thing. Facebook's chances of ever seeing much of that $360,500,000 is another thing entirely.”

Porembski hijacked over 160,000 Facebook accounts he said and used them to send over seven million spam adverts for non-existent products. Some of the adverts pushed users towards phishing sites while others generated cash in pay per click systems.

“Ridding Facebook of spammers and scammers is a passion for us,” said Facebook’s Security blog.

“We're pleased with the win, which is just another result in an ongoing enforcement effort.”

Facebook has been using a variety of tactics to defeat spammers on its site. Bret Taylor, chief technology officer for the company, said this week that Facebook had cut spam by 95 per cent during 2010.