The lesson for anyone considering sending spam email on Facebook is a plain one…don’t do it! Adam Guerbuez and Atlantic Blue Capital, which is his company, were beat down with a $873 million dollar fine for spamming Facebook members in March and April 2008.

Apparently, Guerbuez sent out over 4 million spam messages during this period for marijuana, sex material and male enhancement drugs by using autobots.

The fine was easily the largest ever issued against a spammer for violating the 2004 CAN-SPAM act.

The judge, Jeremy Fogel, would not comment on how he decided on the amount of the fine. The total included $437 million in statutory damages and $437 million for agrravated statutory damages.

Does Facebook expect to collect the entire amount? No way, according to Facebook officials who say Guerbuez and his company have nowhere near that amount of money. Instead, they hope this will send a clear message to would be future spammers who would attempt to do the same. There is no mention of jail time in the story.

Do you think this will deter would be spammers? Let me know what you think.