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Facebook brought a malicious action under the CANSPAM act when it had no basis for doing so. That action, in part, resulted in the loss of Vachani's business an

Facebook brought a malicious action under the CANSPAM act when it had no basis for doing so. That action, in part, resulted in the loss of Vachani's business and livelihood. Facebook will need to compensate for the loss they caused.

mcherm 10y ago
> it had no basis for doing so Several lower level judges disagreed with you. Although I think that the CANSPAM act ought not apply, there is no basis to claim that this was clearly settled law being ignored to make this into a malicious action.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  And high judges agree. Facebook claimed[0] that emails it sent to its users were misleading, partly, because Facebook inserted "Thanks,\nThe Facebook Team" into messages it sent out as a result of Power.com's actions. Facebook claimed[0], 64. The message, drafted by Power.com, is signed by "The Facebook Team", which is both misleading and false. If the findings [1] of the higher judges are correct, then it appears that Facebook previously argued that it constructed false evidence against Power.com -- and used it in a legal attack that destroyed Vachani's life. [0] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20090102_FacebookComplaint.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/2009010... [1] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/12/13-17102.pdf https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/12/1...
  - Steeeve 10y ago
    The message is at page 10 of the PDF on link[0] above, page 12 of the complaint. (pdf and complaint page numbers don't match up) It's clear to me that this was a spam/phishing message. 1. Comes from @facebookmail.com 2. Signed "The Facebook Team" 3. Includes only links to facebook. 4. In the footer, "Want to control which messages you receive from facebook..." facebook link. --- Now, they obviously created a facebook event as a promotion and invited people on facebook to that event in order to generate those messages, so there is a bit of a grey area, but it's clearly a power.com email and there's no message of power.com other than: Event: Bring 100 Friends and win 100 bucks What: Reunion Host: Power Start Time: date End Time: date Where: Power --- It's an unethical use of Facebook's systems at the very least, and spells out a pretty big hole (hopefully filled by now) that opens facebook users up to scams because the originator is obfuscated.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      The message was determined not to be spam, but regardless, Facebook constructed and sent that message. As far as I can tell from these documents, Power setup a Facebook event, then Facebook added it's own text (eg. "The Facebook Team") to the event message and sent it as an email to its own users. Then, Facebook took down Vachani based on those emails.
komali2 10y ago
"Will need to be persuaded to compensate," i.e., sued, which will take probably 2-5 years to complete because it will be cheaper to bill lawyers than payout potentially millions to Vachani. A big problem with our legal system is that it favors those with more money in every way - the rich can lever more cases, better cases, more often. They can afford to appeal at every level, to pay lawyers to look for hundreds of little loopholes. And they are essentially immune to being sued because not only can nobody afford to even begin procedures, once they do, all the more enriched party needs to do is fend off attacks long enough for their opponents' funds to run out.
- micaksica 10y ago
  > A big problem with our legal system is that it favors those with more money in every way - the rich can lever more cases, better cases, more often. The legal system is not the only institution affected by this.
  - tmd83 10y ago
    Yes that is and has been the way of the world. But we at least like to pretend or want that to be not the case. Also legal system was suppose to be the place to go when in other system (administration and such) fails to protect the poor and weak.
sjg007 10y ago
I guess the question will be can Facebook block a user if they act on the behalf of another user. It seems unlikely.

mcherm 10y ago

> it had no basis for doing so Several lower level judges disagreed with you. Although I think that the CANSPAM act ought not apply, there is no basis to claim that this was clearly settled law being ignored to make this into a malicious action.

jsprogrammer 10y ago
And high judges agree. Facebook claimed[0] that emails it sent to its users were misleading, partly, because Facebook inserted "Thanks,\nThe Facebook Team" into messages it sent out as a result of Power.com's actions. Facebook claimed[0], 64. The message, drafted by Power.com, is signed by "The Facebook Team", which is both misleading and false. If the findings [1] of the higher judges are correct, then it appears that Facebook previously argued that it constructed false evidence against Power.com -- and used it in a legal attack that destroyed Vachani's life. [0] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/20090102_FacebookComplaint.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/technology/2009010... [1] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/12/13-17102.pdf https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/12/1...
- Steeeve 10y ago
  The message is at page 10 of the PDF on link[0] above, page 12 of the complaint. (pdf and complaint page numbers don't match up) It's clear to me that this was a spam/phishing message. 1. Comes from @facebookmail.com 2. Signed "The Facebook Team" 3. Includes only links to facebook. 4. In the footer, "Want to control which messages you receive from facebook..." facebook link. --- Now, they obviously created a facebook event as a promotion and invited people on facebook to that event in order to generate those messages, so there is a bit of a grey area, but it's clearly a power.com email and there's no message of power.com other than: Event: Bring 100 Friends and win 100 bucks What: Reunion Host: Power Start Time: date End Time: date Where: Power --- It's an unethical use of Facebook's systems at the very least, and spells out a pretty big hole (hopefully filled by now) that opens facebook users up to scams because the originator is obfuscated.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    The message was determined not to be spam, but regardless, Facebook constructed and sent that message. As far as I can tell from these documents, Power setup a Facebook event, then Facebook added it's own text (eg. "The Facebook Team") to the event message and sent it as an email to its own users. Then, Facebook took down Vachani based on those emails.

komali2 10y ago

"Will need to be persuaded to compensate," i.e., sued, which will take probably 2-5 years to complete because it will be cheaper to bill lawyers than payout potentially millions to Vachani. A big problem with our legal system is that it favors those with more money in every way - the rich can lever more cases, better cases, more often. They can afford to appeal at every level, to pay lawyers to look for hundreds of little loopholes. And they are essentially immune to being sued because not only can nobody afford to even begin procedures, once they do, all the more enriched party needs to do is fend off attacks long enough for their opponents' funds to run out.

micaksica 10y ago
> A big problem with our legal system is that it favors those with more money in every way - the rich can lever more cases, better cases, more often. The legal system is not the only institution affected by this.
- tmd83 10y ago
  Yes that is and has been the way of the world. But we at least like to pretend or want that to be not the case. Also legal system was suppose to be the place to go when in other system (administration and such) fails to protect the poor and weak.

sjg007 10y ago

I guess the question will be can Facebook block a user if they act on the behalf of another user. It seems unlikely.