Making Facebook Safe Against Spam

Last Friday, Facebook won an important victory for our users – and against spam and those who create it.

We’ve all experienced spam – those unwanted and, sometimes, inappropriate marketing messages. The bad guys behind those messages are always looking to find new ways to annoy people and Facebook’s users have been among those targeted. We don’t take this affront to our users lying down.

In a court in San Jose, after a legal proceeding lasting four months, federal Judge Jeremy Fogel awarded Facebook $873 million in damages against Adam Guerbuez and Atlantis Blue Capital for sending sleazy messages to our users. The award is the largest judgment in history for an action brought under Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM).

Does Facebook expect to quickly collect $873 million and share the proceeds in some way with our users? Alas, no. It’s unlikely that Geurbez and Atlantis Blue Capital could ever honor the judgment rendered against them (though we will certainly collect everything we can). But we are confident that this award represents a powerful deterrent to anyone and everyone who would seek to abuse Facebook and its users.

Read The Rest at Facebook’s Official Blog

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