RSSSpamhaus Agrees to Fight Court Case
By Ed Oswald | Published October 17, 2006, 5:40 PM
It took a threat of domain seizure, but spam-fighting organization Spamhaus will appeal an Illinois court ruling against it. Late last week, lawyers for the group filed documents with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois saying they intended to appeal.
According to the brief, Spamhaus contends that it should not be forced to pay the $11.7 million judgment against it to e360insight, and should not be forced to shut down if it does not comply. The move comes after the group previously claimed the U.S. court had no jurisdiction over it.
In the original case, the group failed to appeal at court hearings in the matter. Thus, the judge entered a default judgment against Spamhaus, ordering the payment of damages along with several other conditions.
Spamhaus' initial reaction was defiant, telling BetaNews that it had no US assets that the courts could seize. But indeed it does: Spamhaus registered its domain, spamhaus.org, through US-based Tucows, and domains are controlled by ICANN, which is still a US government entity.
The group's latest move signals that Spamhaus acknowledges that it is at risk of shutdown if it continues its defiant stance. It is the first time that the company has had to defend itself against a lawsuit from an alleged spammer.
"Although Spamhaus is based in the United Kingdom, unsurprisingly no spammers risk filing lawsuits in a British court, primarily because the UK legal system is based on 'loser pays costs' and does not allow frivolous lawsuits," the organization contends.
Neither side has made any further public comments on the appeal as of press time.
Spamhaus should at the very least contact the owners of the web sites they are blocking to notify of a problem with the said site. If they can not do this then perhaps they need to be takin down a notch or two. They have in the past blocked my mail server without notifing me to what the problem was... I simply had not Named my Mail server and left a Real IP that was not changing or misconfigured and they blocked all of my users without any warning to me or any users. I had to dig and dig to find out what the 4ell was going on. It would have been so simple to just simply send a Heads up to me and say hay... you forgot to name your mail server.
I should not have had to dig and dig to find out what the heck was wrong with the server. Spamhaus should change the way they do "Business" and I'd have no problem with them.
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|Below is cut & pasted from an previous response to your previous spewing on the same subject:
Look at all the smtp zombies out there spamming...I guess you expect every RBL on Earth to contact each and every one of those before they're added to a bl? I don't think so. Your improperly configured mail server isn't anything "special" either. Bottom line: You screwed up, and got put on a BL. It happened to me also years ago. I screwed up the config on my mail server and my ISP blocked all SMTP traffic to and from my IP. Was I pissed? You bet!...at myself for the careless mistake I had made. I wrote a very humble letter of apology to my ISP explaining the mistake I had made and they turned me back on. Did I learn a lesson? Hell yes! What makes you so special that others should be responsible for your mistakes? "Wha Wah Wha...nobody told me I messed up and then I couldn't send mail....boo hooo hoo". In your case, Spamhaus did what they should have done.
You alone are responsible for your ignorance and stupidity...not spamhaus or anyone else. BTW, you might want to try reading the SMTP RFC.
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|Speaking of your stupidity... bla bla bla... if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all ... bla bla bla.
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|I can see you spend about as much time and effort on a witty forum response as you do administering an email server.
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|Go away little puppy... far far away. :o) bla bla bla. You're ugly and your mama dresses you funny. Is that more witty for you lil fella?
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|Please...don't ever touch a server of any kind again...
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|Bla...
Please get a life... And I will continue to do what I do.
Bla bla...
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|And I will continue to do what I do.
...which is screw up.
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|1. People still watch tv? Why?
2. I am not prejudiced against Brits, but some over there need to realize the days of the dominance of the British Empire are long gone.
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|1. i agree with you there
2. you are a moron. they never said they were dominant, they just had no reason to waste money on a court case in america when they have nothing american based. their domain name should not be in jeapordy because some jackass company wants to sue for some dumb crap. this is why america needs to lose control of the internet.
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|Maybe you're just mentally retarded, so I'll explain the situation to you:
1) Spamhaus is a British company registered in Britain and is thus subject to British and European Union law.
2) The case would never make it to trial in Britain owing to the obvious frivolity of the lawsuit. Not only do the losers incur massive costs in the British legal system, but individuals can be barred from making frivolous lawsuits if their track record warrants it.
3) The only reason this case has its flimsy legal standing is that Spamhaus owns a .com domain name which is administered by ICANN, which is still a US governmental entity despite the obvious potential for bias and "misplaced" influence.
4) Spamhaus is still able to ignore the court order and remain open for business, but it would in most likelihood have to relinquish its .com domain and move to another TLD. .co.uk, anyone? As mentioned above, the US court holds no jurisdiction.
5) Spamhaus' service is voluntary and opt-in. Surely if any legitimate emails get zapped due to Spamhaus' incompetence, it's the account holder who lose out, not the company which sends the email? Since e360insight feels the loss of trade justifies over $10 million of damages, in what way have they been impeded in their business activities?
Or, in a world first, are they a sender of junk mail bitter about somebody stopping their crap reaching our inboxes?
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|Control of the internet should be moved away from ICANN as soon as possible. The problem will be finding a truely independant and un-biased group to give it to. Maybe a court in a non-US court could file suit against all the US spammers or the CIA. Do you think ICANN would enforce the rules then? I seriously doubt it.
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|Seems like another good reason to move control of Internet domain names to a country-independent organisation. Why is this spammer able to sue Spamhaus anyway? Surely the US courts should be locking him up?
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|"Why is this spammer able to sue Spamhaus anyway? Surely the US courts should be locking him up?"
You can sue someone for just about anything and get a court-hearing. If it ends up being a frivolous lawsuit, the person who sued could end up paying big bucks for wasting the court's time.
If he can't pay up, then they just might lock him up. =p
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|Can they get to work on Geico? The TV version of Spam. God how I hate them.
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|Umm... TV ads are legal. Unsolicited e-mail is not.
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|Finally Spamhaus is being smart. They didn't do anything wrong, so they shouldn't be afraid to show up in court. It was just plain arrogant the way they refused to show up.
I'm glad ICANN didn't actually suspend the domain, too. That would have been suicide.
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|I believe that it's not a case of them being afraid to show up in court, it's a case of not wanting or seing the need to spend money on legal fees when they beilieved that the court had no jurisdiction (rightly so, IMHO) over them.
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|Ummm... did I say they were afraid? Check again. I said they were arrogant. They laughed at a court hearing and acted like they were bigger than it. Big surprise: they're not. If Microsoft isn't bigger than an EC (European Commission) hearing, Spamhaus isn't bigger than a U.S. court case.
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|Ok...When you say the Microsoft isn't bigger than an EC hearing, I think you are wrong...Microsoft only listens to the EC because they have a large business case in the EU. Microsoft could just ignore them, but then they would have to stay in the states for business.
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