Canadian court upholds $873m spam fine

Guerbuez was found guilty of sending 4,366,386 spam massages

A Canadian court has upheld a fine imposed on spammer Adam Guerbuez after he lost his case against Facebook.

Guerbuez sent over four million spam messages to Facebook users advertising penis-enlargement, marijuana and pornography and received the largest spamming fine ever awarded in US history. Guerbuez, a Canadian national, has now had his fine upheld in his home courts, but has vowed not to pay a penny of it.

“I don't have to,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“I officially declared bankruptcy and it was filed and put into effect over two months ago. This judgment was already deposed as part of the bankruptcy.”

The courts found Guerbuez guilty of sending 4,366,386 spam massages using compromised Facebook accounts, and fined him $100 for each one.

“Only the most optimistic staffer at Facebook will believe that they'll ever see the money coming back to them,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“Of course, none of this spamming would have been possible if users had taken greater care over the security of their usernames and passwords. Always take care over where you enter your login credentials - be aware that you might be on a bogus web site that has been created purely for the purposes of grabbing your username and password, and then using those details to send spam to others.”