Lawsuits by Social Networking Sites Chase Elusive Spammers

Social networking sites are pursuing spammers with lawsuits, but their targets are difficult to locate and rarely show up in court.

The most recent high-profile suit was filed by Facebook against a Canadian man, Adam Guerbuez, the Recorder reports. It alleges he impersonated Facebook users to send more than 4 million messages hawking things such as marijuana and penis enlargement pills.

In another suit, MySpace obtained a $230 million default judgment against Sanford “Spamford” Wallace and a business partner in May. A month later, MySpace settled with Scott Richter in a different spam case.

Lawyers often base such lawsuits on the federal CAN-SPAM Act, state laws, and contracts on the social networking sites that bar junk mail. CAN-SPAM provides for up to $300 in damages for each willful violation.

But some lawyers told the Recorder it may be hard to collect. "Do these lawsuits work in the sense of recovering monetary awards? Only occasionally," said William Frimel of DLA Piper. "I think more important to these companies is the chilling effect it has on spam."

John Dozier Jr. of Dozier Internet Law, which represents accused spammers, doesn’t disagree. He says spammers make a conscious decision not to show up in court, and they are shielding their assets. "Everybody knows now to move their assets off shore,” he told the Recorder.