On Monday, the Associated Press briefly
reported that rising social networking website Facebook won its lawsuit it filed back in August against a Canadian spammer and his business, collecting something in the neighborhood of $873 million.
Montreal resident Adam Guerbuez, and his company, Atlantis Blue Capital, were accused of unlawfully spamming Facebook users with “unsolicited messages about drugs and sex.” He was officially charged as guilty of these charges on Friday by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel.
According to Facebook, Guerbuez duped countless members of the social networking website to surrender their passwords—with that access, the defendant went on a mass-message spree, distributing over four million messages to Facebookers with content involving illegal drugs, among other things.
Back in May of this year, rival social network MySpace.com won big against the so-called “King of Spam” in a case amounting to $234 million. That figure certainly pales in comparison to the settlement won by Facebook; still, authorities and experts alike doubted that MySpace would see a dime of that sum—big time hackers are hard to track down, and they don’t necessarily want to be brought in to empty out their pockets.
The AP conveyed similar sentiments about this very case with Facebook. Still, reporters smartly contend that even if the social network doesn’t receive payment, the case will be a lesson to other spammers that crime… even e-crime… isn’t worth it.
Talk back - leave a comment
