RSSSpamhaus Could Lose Domain Name
by Ed Oswald
After thumbing its nose at a US court, UK spam fighting organization Spamhaus could lose its domain name. The action would come as a result of an expected order by a federal judge in Chicago that would order ICANN to suspend the group's rights to spamhaus.org.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered Spamhaus to pay e360insight and its CEO David Linhardt $11,715,000 in damages, and immediately remove his company from the blacklist. In addition, the group was ordered to publish an apology and acknowledge that Linhardt was not a spammer back in mid-September.
Spamhaus' initial reaction was defiant, telling BetaNews that it had no US assets that the courts could seize, and said the court had no jurisdiction. But it indeed does: Spamhaus registered its domain, spamhaus.org, through US-based Tucows, and domains are controlled by ICANN, which is still a US government entity.
Such a ruling would unleash a flood of spam onto the Internet, Spamhaus claims, although experts say such an eventuality is unlikely, and would rather be a roadblock that could easily be worked around.
Lawyers for e360insight said going after Spamhaus' domain name is a last-ditch effort to get the organization to comply with the ruling. "What else can we do?" one if its attorneys told the Associated Press Tuesday.
It is not clear if either Tucows or ICANN would comply with the ruling, although some experts say Tucows may have no choice. With these latest threats, Spamhaus' public statements on the matter have seemed to change, and now seem to indicate that the group will appeal.
"We are working with lawyers to find a way to both appeal/contest the ruling and stop further nonsense by this spammer," the group said in a statement. However, it ruled out attempting to get around a Web domain shutdown by simply registering another name.
"The reality is that if Spamhaus gets around the court order by switching domain to maintain the blocking, the judge would very likely then rule us in criminal contempt," it said. "We don't want a criminal record for the sake of fighting spam. We normally help fit the spammers with criminal records, not the other way round."
20 Comments
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Not going to happen.
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If you run a website such as Spamhaus which entails an enormous amount of responsibility and your response to a court case is that the US courts have no authority to sieze your assets and that the court have no jurisdiction over you - then YOU are acting the irresposible ass.
Whether e360insight are spammers or not was precisely something that was debated in court and if you can't even be bothered to represent yourselves to defend the case and the case goes against you and you stand the chance of losing your domain name as a result - then tough sh!t - you don't deserve to have the domain name if you are such an irresponsible organisation.
The debate isn't really about whether e360insight are spammers or not or whether Spamhaus are a worthwhile organisation or not. The debate is whether Spamhaus were acting responsibly and in my opinion they obviously were not.
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Now this is too much. I really hope Icann / Tucows do not suspend the domain. I am really pissed of by e360insight. I have colleted the working e-mail addresses from the company and their lawyers:
dave@e360insight.com
dw_linhardt@yahoo.com
bdstore.service@gmail.com
dlinhardt@gmail.com
info@bargaindepot.net
bart@synergylawgroup.com
klehner@synergylawgroup.com
jkish@synergylawgroup.com
I have a honeypot e-mail server that collects about 10000 Spams a day. I will redirect all the Junk Mail to the above addresses.
Sorry, but I am normally a sensible person but this will keep them busy for a while.
Please send mails with your comments to the above addresses.
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It is obvious that the "laws and regulations" are again being perverted from their intended purpose by scumbag lawyers. What we need to do is get rid of all the lawyers and have all laws written in common everyday language that all can understand. This would solve most of the worlds problems. Lawyers are truly the scum of the earth.
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If ICann gives up the domain, then they should no longer control domains.
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That wouldn't resolve anything. Ultimately there must always be some entity somewhere who owns final authority for domains, and no matter who the entity or where it is located, it will fall under a legal jurisdiction of some sort. Even if it were under the jurisdiction of Somalian Pirates or the Afghanistan Taliban, it would still have to obey the equivalent of court orders in its jurisdiction. I'm not a fan of ICANN, but you can't fault it for merely obeying court orders, regardless of how unfair or unjust those orders may be.
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this is another set back in the fight for the common computer user to defend his / her machine from malicious content . we are going to be at the mercy of the spammers. I have read articles that state what 360 does and it sure sounds like unauthrized use of some ones property to me .
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I don't fully understand this thoroughly, having not had time to study the stories, but this morning an e-mail I tried to send someone was kicked back at me by Spamhaus with the implication that there was something "spammy" connected to the URL for my public-service web page: http://www.geocities.com/maiinganikan/. I first heard about this story on WBBM-AM radio in Chicago and have already forwarded the chain to them after calling in with the coincidence. I've also sent e-mails to Spamhaus & to the org. running the recipient e-mail addresses [a university]. I was able to successfuly re-send that e-mail by deleting everything in front of "geocities" on the draft. This is the 1st time my URL encountered rejection. I hope it's the last.
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This is the 1st time my URL encountered rejection. I hope it's the last.
Not likely with a free webhost like geocities. It's not that Spamhaus deliberately blocks free hosts, but spammers often use them to host their phishing/scam sites, etc. And then when those e-mails are reported to Spamhaus, the domain gets blacklisted. It's no one's fault really except the spammers. Blame them for the difficult e-mail world we all live in now.
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Spamhaus has acted illegally, and when things werent going his way, Linford backed out and fired both of his Chicago based lawyers. They did make intial responses, but left when things werent going thier way. A company in the US must follow a judgment in the US (ie. ICANN, and Spamhaus DNS/Web Hosting companies (which ARE in the US). Spamhaus' clients are more then 90% US. Spamhaus' IPs are more then 90% US. This includes those related to spamhaus.ork as well as spamhaus.org.uk
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ICANN is supposed to act neutral no matter what happens thou.
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This going to fuel the fire over the issue of who should have control/jurisdiction over the ICANN. Lots of countries are angry over the US still having control of the ICANN. I'm sure they will use this as an example in the future. If not, they should. ;-)
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ICANN would still be subject to rulings no matter where it is. A lot of that 'anger' is 5 year old temper tantrums.
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The U.S. court is insane. Personally, I hope they get their way. The suspension won't last a *day* when the U.S.'s networks are brought to their knees by spam. Unfortunately, though, the rest of the world would suffer too... so maybe that's not the best way to learn the lesson.
Wake up judge.
...on the other hand, it was pretty stupid of Spamhaus not to show up in court, but still...
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It may not have been stupid of Spamhaus; it may be that Spamhaus simply could not afford to go to court. Justice is not blind: 'justice' favours those with money.
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Could not afford to make an appearance in court? Umm... I highly doubt that. This is Spamhaus we're talking about.
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Exactly... who do you think is making more money, those that create the spam or the small groups that try to provide options in eliminating the spam.
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e360insight could take Spamhaus' domain away, but let's see them take away their IP address! We can reconfigure servers to get data from the IP address, yes?
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Exactly.
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