"One. Billion. Dollars! Muhuhahahahah!"

[Papa_Complex]

Canadian spammer ordered to pay Facebook $1 billion

MONTREAL—Spammers of the world, beware.

A Montreal man has been ordered to pay Facebook $1 billion after allegedly spamming its members with a variety of messages including penis-enlargement ads.

Quebec Superior Court upheld a ruling by a U.S. court that Adam Guerbuez owed the money for allegedly flooding people's Facebook pages with more than 4 million messages.

The case is touted as a potential precedent-setter — with some calling it the largest such penalty, by far, in Canadian legal history.

But Facebook shouldn't hold its breath waiting for the money. Guerbuez says he's legally broke and therefore not compelled to give anything to the social-networking giant.

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

“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.”

A court in California ruled in 2008 that Guerbuez had violated U.S. anti-spam laws. He was ordered to pay Facebook $873,000,000 (U.S.) — or $100 in damages and $100 in penalties for each of the more than 4 million messages he allegedly sent.

That works out to more than $1 billion Cdn. The penalty was upheld last week in the Quebec ruling.

But Guerbuez said Tuesday he has never publicly admitted to posting the messages.

Guerbuez's Canadian lawyer, Eric Potvin, said the U.S ruling was granted by default because Guerbuez didn't present a defence in the original case.

Ironically, Guerbuez said the experience has generally been positive for him and there's a book deal in the works about his case.

Guerbuez, who described his job as an Internet marketing professional not a spammer, said people have offered him jobs and raised business opportunities with him.

“The truth about this actually is that it's only helped me to become more of a public figure. It's been plenty of free publicity.”

Quebec Superior Court Justice Lucie Fournier also forbade Guerbuez from having a Facebook account or being involved in any way with the social-networking site.

Guerbuez said he promotes a variety of products, including medication to treat such conditions as erectile dysfunction and enlarge men's genitals.