Facebook awarded $873 million in lawsuit against spammer
Spam marketing messages on Facebook have been getting worse over the last year as the site has grown but maybe such spamming is about to stop. On Friday, the company won a court battle against spam perpetrator Adam Guerbuez and his front company, Atlantis Blue Capital: An $873 million award it will likely never be able to fully collect. You can download the ruling here (PDF).
Ads included objectionable (if not inaccurate) material.
The civil action was filed under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), a 2004 law that, among other things, prohibits false or misleading marketing emails. Guerbuezs messages were sent by fake or compromised Facebook accounts, using the sites messaging system such messages are being interpreted by courts as applicable to CAN-SPAM.
From Facebook:
Does Facebook expect to quickly collect $873 million and share the proceeds in some way with our users? Alas, no. Its unlikely that Geurbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them (though we will certainly collect everything we can). But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users.
Rival social network MySpace won a $230 million award against a notorious spammer named Sanford Spamford Wallace in March of this year.
Guerbuez is based in Montreal, Canada. Facebook has served him with the judgement and will be taking as much of his money as it can. It hopes this will have a deterrent effect on other individuals targeting its site. Given the difficulty of enforcing such laws around the world, its likely that spam will continue.
Guerbuez, in any case, is also banned from Facebook for life.
Spam marketing messages on Facebook have been getting worse over the last year as the site has grown but maybe such spamming is about to stop. On Friday, the company won a court battle against spam perpetrator Adam Guerbuez and his front company, Atlantis Blue Capital: An $873 million award it will likely never be able to fully collect. You can download the ruling here (PDF).
Ads included objectionable (if not inaccurate) material.
The civil action was filed under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM), a 2004 law that, among other things, prohibits false or misleading marketing emails. Guerbuezs messages were sent by fake or compromised Facebook accounts, using the sites messaging system such messages are being interpreted by courts as applicable to CAN-SPAM.
From Facebook:
Does Facebook expect to quickly collect $873 million and share the proceeds in some way with our users? Alas, no. Its unlikely that Geurbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them (though we will certainly collect everything we can). But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users.
Rival social network MySpace won a $230 million award against a notorious spammer named Sanford Spamford Wallace in March of this year.
Guerbuez is based in Montreal, Canada. Facebook has served him with the judgement and will be taking as much of his money as it can. It hopes this will have a deterrent effect on other individuals targeting its site. Given the difficulty of enforcing such laws around the world, its likely that spam will continue.
Guerbuez, in any case, is also banned from Facebook for life.
