Popular social networking site Facebook has won a $873 million judgment against Adam Guerbuez, a Canadian man who flooded the network with sexually explicit “spam” messages. A US court found Canadian Adam Guerbuez and his company Atlantis Blue Capital liable for statutory damages and aggravated statutory damages totaling $437 million each because of their junk e-mail marketing campaign during March and April of this year.The judgement was announced on Friday.
This is the largest fine ever issued under the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2004. Facebook hopes that the size of the judgment will scare off other spammers who wants to do nasty things with it’s users.
“Everyone who participates constructively in Facebook should feel confident that we are fighting hard to protect you against spam and other online nuisances,” Max Kelly, Facebook’s director of security, wrote Monday on the company’s blog.
According to Facebok, Adam Guerbuez and his company fooled Facebook users into providing him with their usernames and passwords, by using various techniques including use of fake Web sites that posed as legitimate destinations. After Guerbuez gained access to user’s personal profiles, he used computer programs to send out more than 4 million messages promoting a variety of products, including marijuana and penis enlargement products, during March and April of this year.