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Canadian Spammer Fined Over $1 Billion
innocent_white_lamb writes "A man has been fined ONE BEELYUN DOLLARS (yes, really) for sending 4,366,386 spam messages that were posted on Facebook. He was fined $100 for each message, and including punitive damages he now owes $1,068,928,721.46. A ruling by a US District Court judge in San Jose, California has now been upheld by the Quebec Superior Court (the defendant lives in Montreal)."
Have a look at the concept called "comity".
In this case, the spammer went with the, no lawyer defence and didn't even bother to turn up. Big catch with that is "Guerbuez fooled its users into providing him with their user names and passwords" and that is interfering with a computer network a criminal offence. The evidence for which has now been established in a civil court and the spammer has show complete contempt for that court not only be freely admitting his guilt but also by mocking the fine by saying he will declare bankrupt and keep all the criminal proceeds from that crime.
This then forces US law to intervene and seek criminal prosecution for interfering with a computer network, via obtaining user name and passwords under false pretences and using that to fraudulently misrepresent the products he was advertising as being recommended by friends of the victims and also interfering with those 'friends' computer network.
You have the right to remain silent, remember those words when you want to get rich quick by breaking the law and don't make a ass out of yourself by publicly bragging about and defending your criminal activities.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Declaring bankruptcy doesn't do a single thing to shield you when there are criminal charges involved.
4 years if I recall the terms of the agreement, and the first installment is already being doled out to people along the coast who were affected by the spill.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
249,428,104,576, or 249.4 billion messages will surpass the world GDP.
$61,060,000,000,000 GDP of world ÷ $244.80 per message. = 249,428,104,576 messages. Should a spammer send this many junk messages, and get caught, then by legal precedent he will owe the equivalent of the world GDP. I wonder if that's more than the number of AOL disks that have been mailed...
It's pretty fucking simple this guys... Don't mess it up.
A US court ruling has no power to get anything from the guy as long as he and all his possessions are outside of the US. Before anything happens in Canada a Canadian court needs to look at the case and see if it agrees on the ruling.
From the summary:
A ruling by by a US District Court judge in San Jose, California has now been upheld by the Quebec Superior Court
It doesn't, it's $440m for the messages and the remainder is punitive damages.
Since the guy's canadian and lives in canada.. And this is a US court ruling..
He went with the "I don't live in that country and they can fuck off" defence...
Errr BP has paid nearly a $1bn (ONE BILLION DOLLARS) in claims alone before this fund was set up.
But that's no where near as exciting as talking out of your arse against "teh evil corporation". Just as well you posted AC because you are just that!