2011-02-01
Abstract
Social network spammers get their comeuppance.
Copyright © 2011 Virus Bulletin
Social networking giant Facebook celebrated victory against spammer Philip Porembski last month, when a federal court in California ordered him to pay $360.5 million in punitive damages to the company and ruled that he be barred from the social networking site indefinitely.
Porembski was accused of hijacking more than 160,000 Facebook user accounts and sending over 7.2 million spam messages to users of the service. The spam included links to sites from which Porembski earned affiliate commissions as well as links to fake Facebook login pages, from which Porembski was able to harvest users’ login credentials and hijack accounts.
Facebook reportedly received more than 8,000 complaints about the spam, while it claims that in the region of 4,500 people went as far as closing their accounts completely as a result of the spamming.
Meanwhile, a court in Quebec has enforced a US$873 million judgement against another Facebook spammer, Adam Guerbuez. As long ago as November 2008, a US district court ordered Adam Guerbuez and his company Atlantis Blue Capital to pay Facebook $873 million in damages for having sent more than four million spam messages via the social network. However, Guerbuez – a resident of Quebec – appealed against the ruling, arguing that it should not be recognized in Quebec since such a hefty fine was not compatible with Canadian anti-spam laws. The Quebec Superior Court did not agree however, finding no legitimate reason not to enforce the California judgement.
