A US court ruling that denied a request by alleged spamming organisation e360Insight to suspend the domain name of London-based anti-spam organisation The Spamhaus Project has been styled ‘…a devastating loss of personal freedom for all US citizens…’ In a statement president and ceo of e-mail marketing company David Linhardt continued: “If the court cannot prevent Spamhaus from violating its order, then Spamhaus will continue to censor and control the e-mail messages Americans can receive.”

The short background to this is as follows. Spamhaus included e360Insight on its blacklist of spammers. Earlier this month e360Insight won compensatory damages of US$11.7mn against Spamhaus in a judgment that, inter alia, ordered Spamhaus to permanently remove Linhardt’s spam evidence records, to post a notice stating that Linhardt is ‘not a spammer’ and to cease blocking spam sent by Linhardt's company e360 Insight LLC to Spamhaus’ users.

Having decided to appeal, the possibility at that point was that Spamhaus would have disregarded any future adverse rulings, arguing that since it was based in the UK the US court had no jurisdiction. Certainly the Spamhaus website’s response to the ruling was uncompromising. Here’s a less incendiary part of the response. “Spamhaus firmly stands by its position that Linhardt is a spammer (ie: ‘a sender of unsolicited bulk e-mail’), Spamhaus has large samples of spam advertising Linhardt's website www.bargaindepot.net, sent to Spamtraps and non-existent users, including spam sent to some of Spamhaus own investigators, plus many complaints from Internet users ready to testify they never opted-in to any such list and were being spammed by Linhardt.”

Either way though, e360Insight then upped the ante and endeavoured to have Spamhaus’ domain name suspended. But Judge Charles Kocoras declined the request to compel the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Tucows, Spamhaus’ domain registrar, to suspend its domain name. Kocoras broadly reasoned that the remedy sought was out of proportion to the gravity of the offense.

In his response to the reversal Linhardt, characterised by Spamhaus as ‘…a one-man bulk e-mail marketing outfit based in Chicago…’ has played the patriot card. “The US Government used taxpayer dollars to create, develop and commercialise Internet technology and infrastructure. Now, a foreign organisation is using the Internet to interfere with the personal freedoms of all Americans.” he posted. “Spamhaus, a UK-based organisation, is currently defying a US Federal Court order and is improperly blocking e-mail messages affecting millions of Americans everyday. Thousands of US Internet Service Providers and domain administrators are using Spamhaus right now to block e-mail messages. As a result, Americans are unable to receive the messages they have requested.”

It might be worth reading that again, but best not to think Samuel Johnson here.
John Williamson