Canadian Spammer Who Ignored US Judgment Discovers Canadian Courts Are Willing To Uphold US Rulings
from the spam-spam-spam-spam dept
Earlier this year, we wrote about how Canadian spammer Adam Guerbuez had lost a lawsuit in the US brought by Facebook, alleging he spammed millions of accounts. He didn't just ignore the ruling; he gleefully mocked it on his own blog, playing up the huge amount ($873 million) the court awarded Facebook and referring to himself as the "$873 million man." Apparently, he didn't count on the news that a Canadian court would uphold the ruling and order him to pay. With some additional damages and the Canadian exchange rate, he apparently owes Facebook $1,068,928,721.46. I'm going to assume that this is more than he has -- though, I would imagine all of the photos on his blog highlighting himself living the good life probably won't help. In fact, now he's claiming that he's declared bankruptcy, so he's still not planning on paying. Again, all those photos on the site... might not look so good in bankruptcy court. That said, a billion dollar fine is a ridiculous amount for spam, no matter how annoying you believe spam might be.
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Filed Under: adam guerbuez, canada, spam
Companies: facebook
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Mixed feelings
I HATE spammers, so it's great that this idiot got caught and has some sort of punishment coming.
But $873 MILLION for spamming??? What the heck was that judge smoking? Is this seriously considered an ok punishment for this kind of crime, or is it because it's based on how many ppl he actually spammed?
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One Bihllyun Dohllars...
Especially when bludgeoning would be so much more...poetic...musical...contemplative...calming? Mmmmm..
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Re: One Bihllyun Dohllars...
Except, you know, maybe make him live out the rest of his life in a forest preserve in Canada, with the Kodiak bears, wolves, and sasquatches....
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Re: Re: Re: One Bihllyun Dohllars...
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Re: One Bihllyun Dohllars...
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Odd punitive damages.
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Re: Odd punitive damages.
The ruling Facebook asked the Quebec court to enforce the penalty for came from a US court based on US Laws.
For all that, though, these kinds of cross jurisdictional enforcement orders are usually aimed at dead beat dads not this kind of idiot.
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How Facebook determined the amount to sue for
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Canadian court uphold ruling
With the bankruptcy, I am surprised facebook continued to go court. There was nothing to be gained.
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Re: Canadian court uphold ruling
He may no longer have to pay the phone bill, but he will still be on the hook for this one.
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so he goes bankrupt ....
who garnishes 26$ maximum per month off his check for life
312$ per year.....
3,426,282 years ahead of payments.
I wonder that far ahead if we will need copyright with robots doing all the work?
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Re: so he goes bankrupt ....
Then the corporations will be the ones laughing, as the next 34,262 generations pay off this debt....
Think this is sarcasm? Just give it a few more years.....
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Re: Re: so he goes bankrupt ....
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It's play money, but the principle will be turned to general use.
So the interesting point is that Canada enforces it. First, I hope that US courts don't start similarly enforcing Canadian "law", because contrary to general opinion, Canada has some of the most police-state "laws" on the planet. Doesn't surprise me that Canada would make its citizens "subject" to foreign law, though. That's the overarching police-state principle that's being put in place with this.
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Re: It's play money, but the principle will be turned to general use.
Cross jurisdictional enforcement orders in civil cases started to become common in the 1980s as divorced women with children sought to enforce separation agreements or divorce settlements when, say, the dead beat dad ran away from Vancouver and landed in Edmonton in Alberta.
Sometime in the 90s it became cross border with the United States where US courts would enforce such settlements rendered in Canada where the dead beat dad ran off from Vancouver to, say, Seattle. And Canadian courts would grant enforcement orders in the same circumstances in Canada rendered in the United States. In both cases the order requires a judicial review in open court before it's granted.
Something to do with NAFTA, if my memory is working.
The fly in the otherwise good ointment is that no one foresaw this sort of situation as Canadian courts rarely, if ever, enforce some of the more extreme rulings that come from some US courts. Until now.
Of course, no one foresaw there would be such an idiot as Guerbuez who would continue to pull the lion's tail after the first mauling. Streisand effect, remember?
If he'd have shut is yap we probably wouldn't be here.
Remember that this isn't an enforcement of US law in Canada it's the enforcement of a legitimate court order from an American court.
And I'll bet dollars to donuts that this thing will be appealed.
BTW, in Quebec French common law holds sway from the time that France lost their North American colonies to Britain rather than the English common law base which the rest of Canada and the United States base their civil law on.
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@ "no one foresaw"...[this with NAFTA].
I suppose it's good that your Supreme whatsit will look at it, but may only chisel it into granite. You already admit that a lower court should have tossed it, so I say the FIX is in on the system already.
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Re: @ "no one foresaw"...[this with NAFTA].
I believe you will find most people are worried about foreigners being subject to USA laws, not the opposite.
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Re: @ "no one foresaw"...[this with NAFTA].
As for your incredible knowledge of the Canadian legal system could you please tell me what you base that on? It's certainly not first, second or third hand knowledge of how we do things up here. Rumours, maybe, but not much if any facts.
As for our court system, it's not perfect any more than the US court system is.
As a Canadian I haven't the slightest interest in "inflicting" our legal system on you or any other American unless you happen to do something stupid, illegal or both in Canada and are subject to our laws. Same as I'd expect if I did either or both in the United States.
As for police state laws, or potential ones, I really want to point you at the Patriot Act. At least we still operate with the doctrine of habeas corpus in full effect which the Patriot Act knackered.
I don't think it's likely that Supreme Court would uphold this if it gets that far, as I said, it violates precedent in that damage enforcement requests by American courts to Canadian courts have be "reasonable" as the Supreme Court has defined them and this certainly isn't.
The guy that posted after this last outbreak of paranoia of yours is right. We (and Mexico) are far more concerned with having some of your more idiotic laws imposed on us. So far, outside of softwood lumber, that hasn't happened.
And, for your information, enforcement orders are routinely granted on both sides of the Canada-US border AFTER they've been heard in open court in the proper jurisdiction in either Canada or the USA.
You sound like a One World Government nutter, you know.
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One million dollars
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Re: One million dollars
Speaking of Dr Evil, heads up: ACTA has been released!
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Spammers can rot in hell...
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The award amount is actually comparatively small
So I think $1500 per individual spam message is far more reasonable than the mere $100 he was assessed.
But of course the debate over the amount is entirely academic. He will evade collection, or will settle for a token sum, dissolve his business and/or declare bankruptcy, then relocate, reform and restart it in another location and/or under another name and get right back to work. It's far, far too profitable for anyone to stop...which is why, as I've pointed out before, there is no such thing as an "ex-spammer".
I also trust that everyone is cognizant of the irony of Facebook going after a spammer.
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The point is
The TYRANNY is thick these days..
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Canadian Tax Payer
Is FaceBook really worth the effort? If the website wasn't used by idiots this idiot would never have succeeded in spamming with his idiotic ads.
Boy the idiots.
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Re: Canadian Tax Payer
The order is against Guerbuez not the people and government of Canada (or Quebec) so we aren't on the hook for a damned thing.
As I said this thing is on it's way to the Supreme Court of Canada because we do have little rules in Canada about excessive civil awards which the lower court judge appears to have ignored.
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Actions have consequences
The moral to this is actions have consequences, even severe consequences.
If you ran a factory, which employed workers based on your ability to collect a profit off of your products, and some jackass came into the middle of your factory and set up a booth selling ShamWows and other booths selling other junk, pasting flyers and stickers on your product's packaging, interrupting your workers, disrupting the manufacturing process by shutting off or moving machines, shoving security guards out of the way; AND their actions not only annoy you but your workers and your customers, even scaring some away, then don't you think that punishment should not only be for the interruptions, but also to prevent another jerk from doing that to some other company and their customers?
No, have the jerk pay for his own facilities and advertising legitimately. No, he committed theft; theft of bandwidth and theft of customer list. He stole earned profit away from their legitimate customers.
I say take everything away from him and only leave his underwear. He made that choice.
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They should be remove fines for this kind of stuff
If government acquired stuff is useful for charities, it should be all donated.
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Keep him busy
Yes, it's a preposterously large judgment, which Guerbuez will never pay. And that's not final judgment. It'll be orders of magnitude smaller.
But while Guerbuez is desperately trying to weasel out of paying, Canada and the United States will be aggressively pursuing his assets, which will keep him extremely busy, which will severely curtail his spamming.
So I'm all for this judgment, no matter how preposterous.
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A Billion Dollars Is Reasonable
What is the cost in terms of man hours of spam. I am willing to bet that lost productivity is far more than a billion dollars. The fine is reasonable.
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Would A US Court Uphold A Canadian Ruling?
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Ridiculous?
I disagree. I think it is a perfectly reasonable judgement. We're not just talking about the annoyance value here. We're also talking about lost productivity from workers deleting those spam messages, system admins trying to block those messages, server storage space while the messages are in transit, money paid for software to help block spam messages, and so on. This guy has cost a lot of people a lot of money. What he is being fined is not nearly as ridiculous as how long he will probably be able to avoid paying any of it.
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Seems fair
It's his own problem he sent about 4.5 million of them.
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