Everyone remembers before the recession how things were. There were people who would show how much money they could spend running rampant. Most of those people have been silenced by the recession as everyday average Americans have grown tired of extravagance.

So here are a few of the things that have gone almost extinct through the recession:

1. Unaccountability. People feel as though CEOs and high level executives have had a hand in the recession due to their lack of accountability. We never heard from them or made them accountable for actions they may have done. However, now, they end up being the most accountable and when a company does something wrong, the CEO is the first to blame and the first to go.

2. People flaunting their extravagance. The days of people owning things like Hummers, bling, and having their homes featured on shows like Cribs has come to an end (for now anyway). Even the once very public Paris Hilton has been fairly unseen recently. Hummer has been dropped from the GM lineup and people are cutting back wherever they can.

3. Outrageous Gas Prices. I’m sure this one will end up making a comeback eventually, but as of right now the average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is around $2.65. This is far from the record highs of $4.10 a gallon for the same grade of gasoline from last year. Many people welcome the difference due to lower income levels and higher unemployment.

4. Less junk mail. Before there was a credit crisis everyone was getting credit card offers, including children and cats. Now there aren’t as many credit card offers floating around and credit card companies are being a bit more careful about who they are sending pre-approved offers to.

5. Stores that sell stuff we don’t need. Stores like the Sharper Image have just simply disappeared in the last year because they sell stuff that people don’t need and typically can’t even create a need for.

Facebook announced yesterday that it had won a lawsuit and $711 million in damages from internet spammer, Sanford Wallace. The social networking site sued him after he spammed the site and would not stop.

Facebook claimed that Wallace was able to get into users’ accounts and send messages to their friends. He was phishing for information and/or hacked the accounts because he was able to get in to them without permission. When someone’s friend saw a message from their “friend” (who was really Wallace’s “marketing” company) they would open it unsuspecting…

“Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,” U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose wrote in his court order.

Wallace has been sued in the past, by MySpace, another social networking website. In May of last year, MySpace won a judgment of $230 million against him for sending junk mail and messages to its users.

He was also fined by the FTC in 2006 for $4 million due to his use of excessive pop-up ads.

So, basically whenever anyone thinks of the “bad” sides of internet marketing they are thinking about this guy. His scams are so sleazy that even a used car salesman wouldn’t use the same tactics that he does (a subprime mortgage lender, maybe).

I am glad to see that people and companies are taking spammers like this one to court and actually winning cases. It is awfully annoying to be a user of a social networking site and know that your friends’ accounts are being hacked and phished and messages that are coming from them may or may not be real messages.

I wish someone would go after the guy who announces in a popup “Would you like to make $5000 a week….” and then when you hit the “x” at the top of the screen, another popup comes up that asks if you’re sure. That is really annoying and I’m pretty sure that most people wouldn’t fall for such a scheme, but they are annoying anyway.

I know that marketers have to come up with new ways to get your attention, but I feel as though the more IN YOUR FACE they are with the way they market, then the less inclined people will be to actually want to purchase the product, and will actually go out of the way NOT to buy it.

It even happens that way with television ads, in my opinion. The main reason I won’t ever purchase “Head On” is not only because I think it is a weird product with  no real medical value past putting a wet cloth on your own forehead, the ads are so LOUD and annoying that I try to steer clear of anything like that.