Spamhaus litigation: Will spammers get a second wind?
Posted by Deborah on October 15, 2006 in Anti spam
‘No doubt you have already heard about the court case against Spamhaus by emarketing firm e360Insight. Regardless of the merits of e360’s claims, shutting down Spamhaus cannot be a good idea. Spamhaus currently has 650 million users (including many corporate users) and blocks 50 billion spam messages per day. The majority of these messages are illegal, containing offensive content or propagating scams and phishes. Spamhaus is currently deemed to be one of the most effective and accurate black lists currently available, with a near to 0% false positive rate. If Spamhaus were to be shut down, not only will this cause spam to leak through spam filters, but it could also mean that spammers will get a second wind. Knowing that Spamhaus is no longer blocking their messages, spammers could start firing off spam with increased urgency, in the hope that their messages might now reach a greater audience. I just hope that Spamhaus and e360 are able to sort out their differences, since the community at large only stands to lose if Spamhaus is shut down.
Here is a quick sum up of the Spamhaus litigation events:
June 21: e360Insight, a marketing firm based in Wheeling, IL, files suit against Spamhaus (a UK based organization run by volunteers) for erroneously listing e360 on its Register of Known Spam Operations, the ROKSO list. The plaintiff argues that they only send emails to recipients who have subscribed to their lists and have ‘opted-in’. Also, the plaintiff states that according to the Spamhaus website, to be listed on the ROKSO list a spammer should be terminated by at least 3 ISPs for Acceptable Usage Policy violations. e360Insight claims that they have not been blocked by even one ISP. Spamhaus at first defended the action but then withdrew its answer and has taken no further action to challenge Plaintiff’s allegations. Spamhaus claims that according to U.K. laws e360Insight are sending unsolicited emails and will therefore continue to include them on the ROKSO list. Spamhaus also states that a US court has no jurisdiction over an organization based in the UK.
September 13: Since Spamhaus failed to respond, the Court enters a default judgment against Spamhaus in the amount of $11.7 million.
October 5: e360 submits an order to suspend www.spamhaus.org since Spamhaus failed to comply with the court’s previous order. If signed, the order will call for ICANN and/or Tucows (Spamhaus’ Registrar) to take the Spamhaus website down.
October 9: ICANN makes a statement warning that they do not have the ability nor the authorization to suspend www.spamhaus.org.
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