1. Case Cite:
Facebook v. Fisher Case #17.3 page 544.
2. Facts:
Facebook is accusing Phillip Porembski, who is a registered Facebook user of creating 116,000
accounts without proper authorization and that they have sent over 7.2 million spam messages that
tricked users to click on a link to a “fishing” site and enter their Facebook log in info.
3. Issue for the court to decide:
Were Fisher’s actions in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act??
4. Analysis of the case
Spam is the transmission of unsolicited e-mails containing viruses that can ultimately
infect the receivers computer, if opened. This allows the spammers access to infected
computers and they can send messages through the infected computers. The CAN-SPAM
Act was created in 2003 to help protect against spam messages. The act provisions: (1) It
bans false and misleading header information and subject lines. (2) Requires sender to
include a response option where the receiver can opt out of future messages. (3) Sender
must clearly identify the message as an advertisement and include a valid email address
(4) Messages containing sexually explicit material, must contain the warning “SEXUALLY-
EXPLICIT” in the subject line. P.525 In this case, there is no information stating whether or
not the subject lines were misleading. There is no information regarding an opt out option
or an identifier of a business in the messages. Nor is there any information stating any
sexually explicit information was in the messages. Because the messages contained a link
5. How to apply this case
This case illustrates the importance of following the Copyright laws for both the owner of
the original works as well as the online provider to which it is posted to. It is important for
the public to understand the information they are posting must be their original works, so