By Jason Magder
Warning all spammers!!
MONTREAL — Adam Guerbuez calls himself the $1-billion man.
That's because the Montreal Internet marketer was ordered by a Quebec court to pay Facebook more than $1 billion in fines. Last week, Quebec Superior Court upheld a California court judgment against Guerbuez.
The judgment, rendered in absentia, fined Guerbuez $100 U.S. in damages and an additional $100 U.S. in punitive damages for each of the 4,366,386 spam messages that Facebook said he posted on users' walls in 2008. The fines amount to $873,277,200, which was converted to $1,068,928,721,46, in Canadian funds, according to the exchange at the time of the judgment.
Facebook alleges the messages promoted medication to treat erectile dysfunction, among other ailments.
Reached Tuesday, Guerbuez said he had no comment about the allegations against him, other than to say: "I don't spam. I've never admitted any guilt on anything they accused me, and I won't."
He said he didn't contest the suit, because it would have cost him too much to do so.
"It would have cost me a fortune to defend myself in a foreign jurisdiction," Guerbuez said. "For a major trial like that, it would have been at least $100,000. They decided to issue a judgment by default and bring it to a Quebec judge to get it enforced here."
Guerbuez's lawyer, Eric Potvin, appealed the California ruling out of principle. He argued the fines were out of proportion with what an equivalent Canadian court would have awarded. Quebec Superior Court Justice Lucie Fournier disagreed, and sided with the California court's ruling.
Guerbuez is also forbidden from having a Facebook account or being involved in any way with the social-networking site.
But Facebook won't get all the money owed to it.
Guerbuez filed for bankruptcy in August, and Facebook is one of his several creditors.
He said, however, the whole fiasco has been a blessing in disguise because he received lots of publicity for his business as an Internet marketer.
"People know what I'm capable of doing: large-scale marketing."
He said he also has a potential book deal and a movie deal out of his story.
glad im in the rhpg gang 