I have cursed Spamhaus more than once for blocking perfectly legitimate e-mails, and they certainly take a "vigilante" approach, but it's either a tough stance on spam or the wolves (i.e., spammers) will run even wilder. I'll side *against* America's decidedly flawed legal system on this one.

However, given the recent arrests of online gambling owners with offshore operations who arrived in the U.S., the ruling seems to imply any Spamhaus employees may well find themselves in handcuffs should a plane on which they might be flying lands on U.S. soil.

Disclaimer: Spamhaus oversees my inboxes. And although I curse when it happens, I prefer living with an occasional false positive to a ton of spam.

Right on SpamHaus!

I use and love them!

And it isn't that easy to get on their list either, you have to really be sending spam or have some sort of issue.

Yes, legit IPs do get added from time to time, but it is REAL easy to get off. I once had a mail server get added but it was because the previous admin hadn't turned off relaying.

It took me a whole 30 mins to get off their list. No big deal!

If you get listed, I didn't want your mail anyway, legit or not.

You are presuming that they NEVER make a mistake - but they do.

--->If you get listed, I didn't want your mail anyway, legit or not.

Wrong... you do not need to be sending Spam at all thank you very much. I run a professional business and I host a some clients who use my mail server for their business, because I had not named my server... rather left my IP as the name and without warning or even telling me that they have dones this out of the blue my mail server starts having problems. I've been running the same mail server for 4 years with out any hitches and out of the blue this company SpamHaus blacklists me... it took me several days to figure out what the heck, (pardon my language but I should have wrote worse) was going on.

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.

Spamhaus Internet terrorists.

Becoming what you oppose
Editorial by Dave Hayes

Many folks have asked me why I stopped "contributing" to the everlasting debates in NANA (news.admin.net-abuse.*). I generally respond with something along the lines of "I don't wish to become that which I oppose". Indeed, recently I've "plonked" several entities (among them the terrorists known as "spamhaus" and "spews") simply because I no longer wish to beat my head against the stone wall of ignorance.

Terrorists? Yes that's right. One definition of "terrorism" is "attacking innocents in the name of your cause". Nowhere is this more ironic and extreme than in the deeds of my old nemesi, the anti-spammer zealotry collective, some of whom are now known as spamhaus and spews. The terrorism they practice is implemented in the form of "mail blacklists".

Blacklists are not a new notion. In the 1950's, the infamous McCarthy blacklists contained names of "possible communists", which ultimately led us to a more sterile culture.
The social costs of what came to be called McCarthyism have yet to be computed. By conferring its prestige on the red hunt, the state did more than bring misery to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Communists, former Communists, fellow travelers, and unlucky liberals. It weakened American culture and it weakened itself. ---Victor Navasky, Naming Names (New York: Viking Press, 1980)

Modern internet technology has created our own version(s) of social blacklists. Many anti-spam zealots have turned to this method for freeing their mailboxes from spam. Simply expressed, these organizations maintain databases which are supposed to contain the IP addresses of known spammers. They then provide these databases to various electronic mail servers, so that the servers can reject email based on what's in these databases.

The bottom line is, if the machine that sends your email is on this list, a number of mail servers will automatically reject all email from your server.

If (and only if) they restricted these blacklists to actual spammers, I doubt very seriously that I would have problem with this practice. If we could trust human beings to maintain a logical and calm viewpoint about life, I doubt that I would have a problem with these blacklists. Unfortunately we cannot trust these things in either case.

Fact: Spamhaus and spews have added innocent IP blocks to their blacklists.

The anti-spammer idealotry goes like this: "Anyone who gets service from a network friendly to spammers is supporting the spammers and therefore our enemy." (The friend of my enemy is my enemy too?)

So here's how this goes. Once a network provider is branded "a communist"...er excuse me..."a spammer", ALL of their IP ranges are blocked. Typically a network provider is providing services for smaller service providers, many of whom would never and have never engaged in spamming of any kind. No notice is really given on these blacklisting events, rather you find out when mail starts bouncing to some destination. Usually an end customer is the first to notice, and that customers is directed by the bounce to complain to...their own ISP!

In essence, the customer is tricked into presenting the terrorist anti-spam agenda to the ISP. The ISP turns around and finds out that their provider (or provider's provider) is what the anti-spam zealots want "silenced". Until that target complies with their arbitrary agenda (usually of the form "stop spamming", but this is not always true...see below), everyone else has to suffer with electronic mail blocks.

What's wrong with this? Everything.
* First and foremost, the most often heard reason anti-spammers are so rabid about anti-spam is "it makes electronic mail unusable for average people". If this is true, then how does blocking innocent email help this situation? In fact, blacklisting innocents contributes to the problem. The hypocrisy here is so thick I doubt even a knife can cut it. * The dishonor of the practice of blacklists is amazing. Many naive internet mail administrators add blacklists like spamhaus "because they work to reduce spam". Lots of these sites have no idea that they are being cut off from legitimate email because of these machinations. If their customers really knew that they were cutoff, I wonder how many would still buy service? Getting rid of spam is one thing, blocking that key business email that means $100K in sales is quite another. Lets take this one step further. Person A buys email service from ISP X who is using Spamhaus to block spam email. Person A's daughter, who's income is very low due to being a student in college, buys email service from ISP Y (because it's cheap) who uses IAP S as their connectivity. ISP Y buys network from IAP S because it's cheap. Due to real life constraints, the only contact Person A has with their daughter is email. IAP S suddenly gets put on the anti-spam master blacklist. The same day, Person A's daughter has a car accident. A roommate desperately tries to send email to Person A but it's blocked. Worse, it's blocked because these zealots have an idealogical cause which is set up to be more important than a person's life. This is the height of dishonor. * The practice is quite criminal by many definitions and with criminals on all sides: o Any ISP that is blocked is told to "comply with our demands or be blacklisted" (a.k.a. extortion). o Attacking innocents in the name of their cause (a.k.a. terrorism). o Since the control of the blacklist is out of the hands of the service provider who subscribes to it, by law you must clearly state "random people may be blocked to your email box by other people who are not under our control" before selling "email services". I've never seen this stated on any ISP ad. (a.k.a false advertising) o Blacklisting ISPs is a good way of knocking them out of business (a.k.a restraint of trade) o If spam ever goes away, these organizations will also. Thus they have a vested interest in keeping spam alive (a.k.a playing both sides of the street)

Do note that the anti-spammers claim these practices are not criminal and will "reduce economic support for the 'spam friendly' ISPs". This claim is quite erroneous:

Fact: Spammer companies have far more money than most innocents.

Yep, to the tune of millions of dollars per month. SPAM is big business. Do you think that the income of one little ISP with 1000 customers is going to make any difference against the large income of a spam company? No! All that does is clear more bandwidth for the spammers to use, should the little ISP cave in and switch to another provider.

While there's no proof (that I'm aware of), it's not so far fetched to open up questions of collusion between "the providers that are anti-spam" and the "anti-spam blacklists". Certain providers, to compete, may pay the blacklist groups lots of money to keep attacking innocents, which gets them more customers in the long run as ISPs fold because they cant afford the connectivity provided by the "anti-spam supporter" providers.

I've established some things here:
1. In my opinion, blacklists are bad. 2. The anti-spammers are resorting to clearly criminal activities to further their goals: extortion, restraint-of-trade, terrorism. 3. The effect the anti-spammers are trying to have by blocking innocents only works to destroy email connectivity, the cure is worse than the disease.

This brings me to my concluding point. The original complaint against spammers included accusations of being criminal. Most spammers are considered criminal. Yet look at the anti-spammers! In their undying eternal zeal to end spam, they have become just what they oppose! Criminals and email destroyers. Gee, isn't this what they call the spammers?

The aware person realizes that fighting something only makes it stronger. Indeed, when you see two people rabidly on one side or the other, it's very hard to distinguish the two. They almost appear to be the same person, willing to commit any atrocity for the sake of their ideology or economics. What more do I need to know?

So, in a roundabout way, that's why I don't participate. I've done my days of tilting at windmills. I've presented my pearls, but the swine didn't hear any of them. They've misrepresented my position countless times for their own agendas, failed to understand even the most basic of the concepts I've explained, and twisted what I've said to make me out to be something I am not. ("Spam supporter"...lol)

I have finally realized that it has less to do with the ability to understand, it's mostly that they are not willing to understand. So in that climate I should once again venture forth into that primal never-ending argumentia that is NANA?

No. I'm sorry. I have far better things to do.

wow, the comment is longer then the article!

Sorry, didn't read past the first sentence when I saw the length. I am sure most people will do the same thing.

Blah blah blah... Probably another spammer... what's your e-mail domain so we can add you to the blacklist. Better yet, Betanews needs to add a comment blacklist. I vote you #1 on the list!

Everybody with a lawyer for a friend should sue spamhaus. All the do is make sending legitimate email a pain in the a$$. I still get spam at every emali address I have. I should sue spamhaus for not blacklisting those people.

And for f'ck's sake! Junk snail mail is 100 times more annoying than spam. Spam has never caused me to delete a bill because it was hidden in the spam message. I get bills inside advertising mailers all the time. Stupid post office.

I personally do not like spammers, but Spamhaus sometimes blocks Real Mail Servers too, I know they blocked mine. Because I did not attatch a name to my Mial Server, it was blacklisted several times... and they did not inform me of the problem for several weeks. They could not simply send an email and say hey did you know that your mail server did not have a name? Nope instead it was simply blocked with no noticification, it was only when a client contacted me that they were having a problem that I had to do some digging to find out the problem. And again I do not support Spammers and it sux to be them... and what's with this $11 000 000 +??? There's a Pipe Dream...

Spiked you are right that it is a default judgement in this case. But since there are laws against spamming called the CAN SPAM Act this judge didn't want to follow the rules of that Act. This act is very dubious because i wrote constantly to Senator Allen (My Senator) on that committee about the problem with spam for several months. I told him I had track several companies that were spamming and not following the law. Granted several of those companies were overseas. One i tracked to the Netherlands that was owned by a Big Time Spammer in Brazil. I informed the government in the Netherlands of the spammer there and they reported back saying the Address this person was using in their country was bogus and that it was tracked back to the spammer in Brazil. They quickly closed down the Brazilian's website.

I can only say that the decision by the judge only shows his total ignorance of what has taken over by these people. Advertisers are constantly looking for ways around spyware programs. They have their tv ads, newspapers, Radio, Banners and other means at their disposal but they want to really track the user so they can gather information on them as they say "To design something specific to the users so they can better serve the users" actually the company that is paying for their advertising services.

We all are upset with the amount of Junk Mail we get in our Snail Mail box but i hate to tell you since i worked as a contractor to the USPS they are prepaid in Bulk Millions of dollars to send that junk mail and so the USPS has no choice but to deliver that mail.

I just recnetly forced Earthlink to remove ads from my startup page because they were using a KNOWN spyware advertiser who was then going to be sending spam because of the advertiser's use of cookies to see what the users were doing. I have blocked many advertising firms from any access to my systems because of the CAN SPAM Act tactics that they are employing now to get around the antispyware/adware programs out there .

If you must know i worked for the very first spammer of the Internet. The company was called Digital Equipment Corporation and when so idiot took the email listing of Systems Managers world wide and sent them spam. The outcome of that spam was a disasterous for Digital and sales worldwide dropped. These people didn't have time to read an email about new equipment when they were constantly looking for bugs and hardware fixes to any condition that would showup.

The only way you and i can stop such things is to tell the company using that advertising company that you will tell all not to buy their products because they are condoning spam and spyware to monitor users. This will stop these spammers or to get people together with a good lawyer to sue these people.

Now i am an Earthlink user and i have caught Earthlink sales doing the same thing as the Digital Sales person did above even to the fact that they disregarded their own Policy Statment and the page where i checked off from recieving such garbage. When it comes down to Money these people will disregard Written Policies in order to get sales up.

The verdict of the court sucks more than anything has ever sucked before. "In addition, the group was ordered to publish an apology and acknowledge that Linhardt was not a spammer." ROTFL! Somebody from the U.S. District Court needs a straitjacket! Children should not play with fire. Their parents should not play with common sense.

If you will check into the details of the case, this was a "default" judgment, meaning the judge did not necessarily agree with the plaintiff's demands but the defendent DID NOT SHOW UP. Based simply on procedural rules, the judge awarded the plaintiff everything they asked for, including the apology.

I'm really disappointed that BetaNews didn't point out the fact that Spamhaus did not actually lose at trial. Spamhaus merely chose not to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend themselves in Illinois which had no jurisdiction and could not enforce any ruling.

By definition (they didn't show up), they DID lose!

You are correct, they DID lose however the fact they lost BY DEFAULT and not on the merits of the case IS something significant that SHOULD have been noted in the article. It's not surprising a UK based company didn't show up for a court case in Illinois.

The courts should have exercised even the smallest bit of common sense and just thrown the case out to begin with. If for nothing else than the fact that they had no legal grounds for ruling on a UK company.

Good for Spamhaus. When will these ahole marketing firms learn. We don't want you calling our homes, sending bs mail to our houses and bothering places of work. Go buy a billboard somewhere and advertise. UK should soon this judge for being a ninkumpoop.

Well as someone that has been put on a blacklisting because they reported to the Fast Colocation Abuse Department for their constantly having people using their equipment to send those UDP Scams to another SBL listing group. I then started to inform all the government legal arms to be informed of the tactic that was being used by companies that allow these scams to sent from. In several cases i investigated Fast COlocation actually help the spammer to change their IP address of their website. Now It took toogh tactics but the Virginia's and the Feds to stop the practice of sending in abuse reports to companies like these. When i send out such report i constantly get blacklisted by those web hosting groups in CHina and Brazil. So when these companies are Making far more than they are report or they wouldn't change the advertised companies IP when they are found.
Oh the SBL group as far as i am concerned was blackmailing people to pay $50 to the charity of their choice. For an Individual fighting these spammers of all types is rediculous. The companies i went after are those listed on the Internet Storm Center Top 10 listing and you can see that those change every five minutes but they would port attack me nearly every hour. THey still send their scams but now only a few at a time that doesn't make my Firewall scream about constant attacks.

11 million dollars? What the F*CK kind of money does e360 make? F*cking christ I should have become a spammer 10-15 years ago. I think everyone is failing to see the kind of $$$$ these as*wipes are making. Who would have ever guessed one could become a multi-millionaire from sending stupid electronic mail? I think if anyone here had the capability (technical wise) to SPAM, they absolutely would do it. I mean you see these c***suckers getting away with this crap. No one ever gets caught! I mean sure once in a while they lock up some scapegoat f*ckhead to make it look like "yea were doing something" but I STILL get spam in my hotmail which supposedly has the "super-filters" (bs). These guys just won't quit.

And theres a reason for that. SPAMMING is one LUCRATIVE A-S-S BUSINESS. People have built their lives on it and live in the lap of luxury while the rest of us morons just sit around whine about it and post in forums like this. I severely regret missing the boat on that one.

sadly, according to some people in these forums, whatever the courts say is right. I'm not one of those.

I'm hoping it's not just america, but litigation and shady business runs rampant all over here doesn't it? You can impress with all the cash you "generate" when it's not even yours and many times not legal. No thanks but I'd rather stay poor and earn my buck.

It seems to be a haven for this type of business in America though. These types of operations are actually protected and promoted believe it or not...all thanks to our now corrupted and twisted well meaning constitution. One day our govt will wake up...but it's just too much money to walk away from...free money for them and their buddies...courtesy of the taxpayer! :D

shyah I'd like 3 more inches and XXX this...then click delete, hehe

Not shocked that the illinois judge awarded them $11.75 million no way does e360insight even generate that much $$$ in a year. Maybe the judges need to wake up and smell the world. Most I feel are corrupt anyway.

I normally don't post on betanews comments but I just had to say that opt-in email advertisers are a load of lying sacks of sh_t. I have received tons of email that I supposedly opted in to receiving that I never did. I didn't opt in to receive p**** enlargement pills or get a hot xxx date with Tammy and Victoria and god knows who. I didn't opt in to receive advertisements for crummy products.

And it's so easy to not get on Spamhaus's blacklist. They even told e360insight how to get off their blacklist. Just stop spamming. Spamhaus aren't the ones blocking your emails, it's ISP's who use Spamhaus's blacklists. If they felt your mass emails are spam (and they are) then that's your fault. Not theirs. And don't repeat that crud about you (e360insight) being opt in advertisers. I and many, many others have received email from opt in advertisers that they never opted in to receiving.

Regardless, Spamhaus is based in England and if you wanna stop them, go sue them across the pond. e360insight will not do so because they know darn well they send unsolicited bulk email which is illegal in the UK. So good luck trying to shut Spamhaus down e360insight, you lying sacks of crud.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Spamhaus provide their services "as is" disclaiming any liability for the use thereof?

e360insight should have contacted the ISPs blocking their mail if it was such a big deal, since the liability rests with them.

HA ! Come sue from over here you stupid e360insight american idiots. What dimit lawyer decided to claim in a U.S. District court ?

I can't believe our courts are actually backing the spammers!!! Put those tax dollars to good use and shut them down, not help them get past the spam blocks were they can ruin e-mail for everybody!!!

11+ million??? this company has a long history of sending spam.. so they need to clean up there act.. Oh wait.. I love spam.. they should give him 200m!!

I doubt that e360 is as innocent as the case history they published on their site leads you to believe. SBL and ROKSO got added rather quickly to blacklists after they started becoming e360 suppliers.. Why was this? Because now they were broadcasting spam. 'Nuff said.

Spamhaus may handle complaints about errors in its system as well as Paypal handles complaints in their system. Which is basically, not at all. But at the end of the day, it is their business and it is up to the individual to stop using their service.

I don't think the US courts should be able to rule on this. ISPs and end users choose to use Spamhaus. If Spamhaus chooses to say they are spammers that should be fine. Sucks for e360, but guess what? I really doubt they are as innocent as they lead you to believe.

and if you believe all that spew from e360insight... I have a cheap... fairly used bridge I will sale you... not to mention some beach front property in Arizona.

e360insight is 100% a spammer organization. Do a few Google searches... it is not too hard to figure this out.

Oh yeah... like there would be a sensible.... or even logical decission coming from a liberal judge in Illinois.

Go Spamhaus and all other "black listing sites" Burning in hell is not a good enough punishment for spammers and unsolicitied marketers.

Don't pay them and continue to blacklist e360insight!!!

I say Spamhaus should counter-sue e360insight for wanting to be whitelisted to continue to send more spam. If it happens that'll be a surprise.

Anyone that fights spam, and try to protect users from getting spam, is getting my support.

If you don't want to be blacklisted, don't send out email that gets you blacklisted, duh!

Spamhaus didn't seem to care that we are an opt-in email marketing company.

Most people who spam me, are exactly this, except I NEVER OPT-IN I GET ADDED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

So that comment is BS

While you are 100% correct that spam sucks and must be stopped, the notion that a 3rd party over which you have no control (Spamhaus for example) having the ability to annotate what THEY have decided is spam is wrong too. No 3rd party has the right to intercept your snail mail and throw away your junk mail without your permission. Espam should be no different. If your ISP says to you that it can block most spam (and possibly some real stuff) by using Spamhaus and you AGREE, then it's fine. But not by default!

Read
http://www.e360insight.com/case_history.html

I think they have a point.

Perhaps Spamhaus needs to ease up.

...and perhaps Black-Wolf needs to get a f'cking clue. ;)

Seriously, five minutes of research (not on e360's site) is all it would take to see e360 is a bunch of spammers. I use Spamhaus, as well as others, on all my mail servers...and love them.

spamhouse has saved our orginization, it has filtered out over 500k messages in less than 7 days I say they are doing a great job. I WILL BACK YOU SPAMHAUSE.

Interesting to see what they have on their website- seemingly *nothing* except the info on the court case... Where's their business?

Everytime I hear about a company who complains they're not spammers all I have to do to remind myself of how bad the issue is, is to check what my mail would look like *without* spam filters...

Most of it seems to be US-based (blocking the $ symbol in a mail is a surprisingly good spam filter most of the time) and so of no use to the rest of the world who get it, because they don't bother to check where they're sending it to!

Thanks for a good job, Spamhaus.

The case with 360 is not really the issue. I've no idea (nor care) whether they're spammers or not. However, I object strongly to ISPs using systems such as Spamhaus without individual users having the right to say they don't want it!

By all means, let the ISP inform individual users that they have such systems and give the user the ability to enable/disable it. That would be fine.

Update - I hear Spamhaus has been getting DDOSed. So soon after a disagreement from a reputable business?

Or is it more likely e360insight have asked their other spamming colleagues to intervene?