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Man ordered to pay Facebook $1bn

Attack of the penis-enlargment ads

A Canadian man has been ordered to pay Facebook $1bn Canadian for a barrage of more than four million penis-enlargement ads he posted on user walls in 2008.

That same year, a California court ordered Adam Guerbuez to pay the social networking site $873m for hacking into members' accounts and sending “sexually explicit messages." After Guerbuez failed to heed the demand, the case was brought in Quebec Superior Court, where the judgment was upheld last week, according to published news reports here and here .

Converted into Canadian currency, the judgment is about $1bn.

The California court fined Guerbuez $100 US in damages and $100 US in punitive damages for each of the 4.36 million messages he was accused of posting. The Montreal man never fought the charges, so Facebook ultimately prevailed in the case.

Not that Facebook has much chance of collecting. Guerbuez filed for bankruptcy in August and the site is one of several creditors listed. An order barring him from having a Facebook account or otherwise being involved with the site remains in effect. ®

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