Facebook won $837m fine against spammer
Facebook has won a $873m judgment against a Canadian sued for spamming users of the social networking site with “sexually explicit” messages after hacking into the profiles of its members. Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, who runs Atlantis Blue Capital and Ballervision.com, was ordered to pay exemplary damages by US District Judge Jeremy Fogel last Friday. Guerbuez did not contest the case, which also resulted in an injunction against him that effectively prevents him from accessing Facebook for any reason ever again. The damages levied were high because Guerbuez was ruled to have have illegally accessed Facebook user profile data in order to mount his junk message campaign, using tactics that violated the US federal CAN-SPAM Act.
Guerbuez allegedly bombarded Facebook users with four million messages punting male enhancement pills and other assorted tat. He tricked users into coughing up their login details using a variety of phishing tricks, then used these compromised profiles to bombard other users with invasive messages. Social networking sites are becoming an increasingly commonplace medium for the distribution of junk mail messages. Earlier this year MySpace won a $230m judgment against notorious junk mailer Sanford ‘Spamford’ Wallace and Walter Rines. The Facebook ruling is the highest payout ever ordered under the CAN-SPAM Act. Facebook have little hope recovering anything but a tiny fraction of the award but are still gunning for Guerbuez.
Source: Register
Comments(45)
pwnd
Dam right Kill the Spammers !
That;s why you don’t go on these sort of websites. If you want friends, get real ones.
I’m kinda in favor of these type of mass spammers to be sold off as body parts to recoup the fee. Maybe ground *into* spam and then sold off. Yup, sounds like a good idea to me.
e08 nailed it!
phuk facebook.
The funny part of it, is thatmost of the part of this money must go to facebook’s users that have been annoyed. But no ! Facebook will won a lot of money because of a spammer, and thanks for all the users (remember that facebook sold some of their users informations months ago).
How the hell can they justify that fine, how the hell is he gonna pay that?
washing the dishes in facebook’s HQ for life.
he and 836 of his descendants
will be paying 50p a week back for a long time
@3 e08
Best argument ;>
as stated he cant pay it if he aint got it, he’l prob just be bankrupt or do time for it or sumthing, he was obviously made an example from and doubt it will stop the rest of them
Martin you pr1ck the title sum and sum in the message is not the same. Twat.
facebook = usa
spammer dude = canada
they say he didn’t show up so facebook was awarded their claim by default. they can’t come after the canadian unless he enters the usa. facebook won’t see a penny.
$873m… the “m” stands for millions or thousands????
good for facebook and a blow to spammers everywhere. The reason he got fined so high was because of his illegal use of phishing for users login/password and then using their accounts to spam their friends.
Even if they don’t see the money, i’m sure facebook just wants people like him to stop this crap.
because the word thousand starts with an ‘m’
In Roman “m” is for thousands…
anyway… I dont care anymore
God, that’s so out of proportion, the US justice system is wrong in so many ways.
Don’t get me wrong, i don’t like spammers one bit, but his life is now ruined forever.
The CAN-SPAM Act? I have a couple CANs (of) SPAM in my cabinets, but I never knew they needed an act…
I thought the Monty Python play was all they needed.
@18
Why is it a bad thing if his life is ruined forever? I hope it is. F@ck him, spammers suck. About time one of them learns a lesson, now if only they could do this to all the others too.
@20
Just because he’s naïve and stupid now doesn’t mean he would have stayed that way the rest of his life, just like you hopefully won’t.
Im the only one thinking it’s a bit hardcore punishment?
No way, in hell, he’ll ever pay 837 million dollars.
Pathetic bill to get.
Yes he should get some jail time, but not a pathetic bill like this. The bill should be an estimation of what he has earned due to his crime – not a way to make money, for the government.
that’s why I asked if ‘m’ is for millions or thousands….
@23 (adf) adf, please go to sleep! Or back to school!!
OOOH MY GOD !!!
837 MILLION US DOLLARS ?????!!!
WHAT THE F…. ??
How da HeLL does he can pay this Bill ??
Its soo UNnecessary , Jail Time is enough , he Has NOT killed anyone to have a 800m $ Bill ….
837 thousand would still be harsh for the crime. thousand times better but still harsh.
@3
will you be my friend
@3 “That;s why you don’t go on these sort of websites. If you want friends, get real ones.” erm, most people use facebook to keep up with their real life friends.
sry but US courts are the most currupt in the world, even if they rule “according to the book”. They represent nothing but the interests of major companies on those cases. Sue a real person for internet-stuff like that… tsts
even if facebook and myspace and whattheheck are going down and losing billions of dollars/euros/yen i couldnt care less.
hell yeah! I hope they castrate him too… spammers should burn in hell as far as I’m concerned.
Just so you all know, “m” when placed after a financial number in banking institutions, and in roman numerals, means thousand or “thousands”.
This talk about telling people to go back to school, is pointless, when clearly you need to return for higher education. If someone is smart enough to know that “m” after a currency number means “thousands” then clearly its a legitimate question.
Also: Spammers suck, anything about 1 penny someone has to pay for spamming is worth it, with no limit to the maximum fine. I hope it is millions of dollars, and not thousands. I also think the money should be split up evenly to its users as they were the ones who suffered.
Wow $837 MILLION? ARE YOU SERIOUS?
That is like MICROSOFT suing someone for 100 BILLION DOLLARS!
scary sh i t like this ridiculous judgment makes me think we should best seal away the US in a big pond of concrete
he chose to do this bad act and now he is paying for it like he should and nobody should feel bad about what he did, he could have not did it and he would be fine but spammers should pay deeply for what they do and spammers should get life in jail and no access to PC’s at all so then they cant do it ever again and perhaps spammers will get the hint that if you spam and get caught then your life will be pretty much done forever even if it is 70 yrs to go till you die.spammers only get my pity nothing else.
ok my question is this…how can the average jo get fined 837 million dollars (around 400 million uk pounds) and pay this off??
couldnt he just declare bankruptcy and sit back and smile flipping the the ppl that sue’ed him off…how the hell does this work?? i upset ppl on a daily basis and i tell them sue me, cus at the end of the day they aint gettin a lot even if they do…all my assets (house, car’s) are in the names of ppl i trust in my family, and if u look at what i own legally it adds up to sh*t, even my pc is in someone elses name. so how does this work? trust me ppl never put ur signature to sh*t thats worth anything if u value it!
I bet he writes a book about it in 10 years or so and gets a cushy job as a computer/hacker consultant in the meantime.
@3
um… most of us use facebook to keep in touch with the friends we grew up with, like our high school friends, but it’s understandable that you didn’t have any friends when you grew up… it’s ok.
This is an odd clash of cultures for me.
I am a minimalistic user of FaceBook and could care less, but I love seeing spammers taken care of.
…Double win?
silly americans
That fine is outrageous.
837mil or 873mil ???
screw him, the fine is right, you cant say that something is illegal, set a punishment and then decide because he did 4million times a day, instead of once that he only get punished once. im 28 and am part of the first full internet generation (i know its been around a while) but you stop this now, atleast where you can and 10 years from now no mas spam
If he can not or will not pay the fine they should harvest his organs to save people.
RE 837 or 873 million or thousand dollars:
It’s $436,638,600 in statutory damages, plus the same amount again in aggravated statutory damages, thus, roughly 873 million dollars. (Source:http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/5:2008cv03889/206207/25/)
$837M is not enough of a fine. If I were that judge, I would have imposed a fine of $838M…..XD
cmon jhahjajhajh, FB is lucky if they’ll see $5M of that money, plus who the hell has 837 million dollars??? If you have that kind of cash you aren’t spamming Facebook in your spare time…i wouldn’t even be on the computer lol