San Francisco — Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking Web site, has been awarded $873 million in a landmark judgment against a Canadian resident accused of sending more than 4 million sexually explicit “spam” messages from members’ profiles, many advertising male enhancement drugs. The judgment was issued in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Friday against Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, and his company, Atlantis Blue Capital.
The man, Adam Guerbuez, did not defend himself or show up in court. The U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, California, on Nov. 21 issued the order against Adam Guerbuez, of Montreal, the owner of Atlantis Blue Capital and the Web site Ballervision.com, according to court documents. The ruling also forbids Guerbuez from using Facebook or interacting with its members ever again.
“We know where he is and where he lives and we are looking for him to execute the judgment,” said Sam O’Rourke, Facebook’s senior corporate counsel. “We have no illusions that we will get $873 million from this guy, but from what we can tell he has substantial resources. If he has $1 million, we will take $1 million.”
O’Rourke declined to say how the social networking site linked its spam to Guerbuez, but said this is not the last lawsuit Facebook will file. It also is investigating spam messages offering fake Macy’s gift cards that showed up in members’ profiles in October.
“We are very much intent on policing the site and making sure Facebook is not seen as a place for spammers to target,” O’Rourke said.
The victory, sealed with a judge’s order issued last Friday, almost certainly would not yield a bonanza for privately held Facebook Inc., whose revenue this year is expected to range between $250 million to $300 million.
Fogel awarded Facebook damages of $436.6 million for the spam and doubled the award against Guerbuez for “aggravated” violations of the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act by illegally accessing Facebook data, company spokesman Barry Schnitt said in a phone interview.
“This should be make it clear that we are going to be aggressive about protecting our users from spam,” Schnitt said. “Certainly the amount is beyond his resources, but we are working through the channels to find and seize what assets he does have.”
Facebook does not look ahead to necessarily collect the money because “it is unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them,” Max Kelly, Facebook’s director of security, wrote in a blog posting on Monday. “We are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users.”
“Everyone who participates constructively in Facebook should feel confident that we are fighting hard to protect you against spam and other online nuisances,” Kelly, wrote on the company’s blog.
Facebook discovered an increase in spam beginning in the spring, with Facebook members receiving messages from friends and other members offering things like herbal marijuana and male enhancement pills for sale, a spokesman said.
Facebook sued Guerbuez and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital, which Facebook alleges is fictitious, in August, and accused him of sending more than 4 million spam messages in March and April. Facebook sued under the Can-Spam (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, which bans “false and misleading” marketing e-mails.
According to Facebook’s charge, Guerbuez acquired logins and passwords of Facebook members, in some cases by luring them to phishing sites where they would unwittingly enter personal information, then used infected computers to automatically log into their Facebook profiles and pump out spam.
The messages advertised Web sites owned by Guerbuez and others that offered male enhancement drugs, among other products.
“There is a potential reputational harm (to Facebook) when users get annoyed or angry or embarrassed,” O’Rourke said.
Although the Can-Spam law was written for e-mails, a judgment in favor of MySpace in May set the precedent for extending the law to messages sent within social networks. In that case, MySpace was awarded $234 million to be paid by so-called Spam King Sanford Wallace and another man.
Guerbuez never fought the case or appeared in court, according to Schnitt. He did not even have a lawyer, according to documents, and he could not be reached for comment.
The case is Facebook v. Guerbuez, 08-3889, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
Since the incident, Facebook has beefed up its antispam technology, creating tools that can delete spam messages from accounts and block URLs that direct people to spam Web sites.
Social networks are rich targets for spammers because members believe they are getting messages from friends and are more likely to at least look at the spam, said Adam O’Donnell, the director of emerging technology at Cloudmark in San Francisco, which sells spam blocking software to several social networks.
The Facebook award is the largest judgment in history for a case brought under the Can-Spam Act, according to Kelly.