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Spamhaus to Ignore $11.7M Judgement
6031769 writes, "As reported on CNet, Spamhaus is choosing to ignore a judgement of $11.7M against them in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court. According to Spamhaus, the judgement has no impact on them, since they are a British organization." From the Spamhaus reply to the judgment: "Default judgments obtained in US county, state or federal courts have no validity in the UK and can not be enforced under the British legal system... As spamming is illegal in the UK, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to UK law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place."
I love how you can just ignore a multimillion dollar judgement. It's their attitude that I find amusing - they really couldn't give a shit.
The right to block Spam is important. I hope their executives don't try going over to America any time soon though. If I worked for them I'd be pretty nervous about taking transatlantic flights.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
It is probably best to kill all spammers! I have been fighting spam for many years now. Why do they get to cause other people so much grieve and work?
.454 casul?
;)
Killing people in general is not right, but if you do it in a humane way, like shoot them through the head with a
It can't be hard to find volunteers for doing this. Shooting casul is a blast!
p.s. don't actually do this..
If a company is sending spam why isn't the ISP for that company shutting them down? Isn't it against the AUP of most providers or at least the big carriers?
For example when you tell them that they blacklisted your IP address and you can vouche that you don't spam, but they won't do anything because you belong to a /16 where somewhere sombody is spamming. blacklisting might be a good idea, but organizations like spamhaus make it bad in practice.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Sounds like a very appropriate response. Illinois is trying to enforce an ill-conceived law and Spamhouse is within their rights in under the laws of the country they opperate from. I do want to see the judges reaction to this one, it should be worth a laugh.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I'm no lawyer, so can somebody explain to me how a court can say that Spamhaus, a service that customers voluntarily sign up for, cannot index IP addresses theat users wish to block? There is nothing Spamhaus does that a local mail server cannot do, they just already have a blacklist for you. Spamhaus is just, "Hey, don't trust these guys."
That's like saying I can't go to Consumer Reports and get an opinion on what car to buy.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
"in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court."
It isn't an Illinois court, it's a federal district court that happens to be in Illinois.
It shoud send out the following email to everyone.
Dear Email Recepient,
My name is Sir Arthur Cunnigham, Bar-at-Law, Queen's Bench, City of London, the United Kingdom. The Illinois Supreme court, Chicago Illinois, USA has awarded a judgement against me for the sum of 11 million dollars. If you have received any unsolicited email from me, I will have to pay you, 535$ as your share of the settlement. Even if you have not received any mail from me before, this email itself will entitle you a share towards the settlement.
So please send me your name, your address, your social security number, your bank account number, the routing number of your bank so that I can remit the said sum without undue delay. In addition to verify your identity, please let me have a valid credit card number, its expiration date and the card verification number. Please allow six weeks for me to raid^H^H^H^H credit your account with the money I owe you.
Have a nice day. Thank you
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
How did the Illinois judge decide they had jurisdiction over a UK-only company in the first place? I thought courts throw out cases that they have no jurisdiction over.
just to piss the elitist spam haters off. a side benefit is that I am now an incredible lover with a huge penis and I get great deals on real estate loans.
But that's what the US does, assumes whatever works there works throughout the world whether it's laws or just general ways of life. people and companies throughout the world are constantly fending off legal actions in regard to things that are quite legal on their home turf but illegal in the US.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
"Illinois spammers."
JAKE
"I hate Illinois spammers"
Troll and obviously supposed to be sarcasm.
But maybe the next time someone in a foreign country tries to sue you for something that's a) not illegal in your country (in fact, SPAMMING is illegal in the UK, so they are not only obeying UK law but preventing the people in question from violating UK law themselves) b) nothing to do with you and c) without consulting you, serving you correct legal papers (reason enough to ignore any legal document) or bothering to contact any form of legal contact in your country, then maybe you can use your powers of sarcasm to get you out.
Seriously, this case is a joke... serving legal papers by EMAIL? WTF? Of course, email is a guaranteed delivery system that ensures that person on the other end recieves it, is the correct person and cannot deny ever having recieved it (that's how to do real sarcasm, by the way)
The Natwest 3 concerns a criminal case. This is a civil case. There's no risk of extradiction.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, but the question of whether it would be legally binding or not also depends on a lot of other things, such as the jurisdiction and whether it's a reasonable venue... an Illinois court is no more a reasonable venue for a UK-only company than the planet Jupiter. You could not be reasonably expected to absorb the costs of defending yourself in a foreign country like that, without even mentioning travel costs, legal costs, unfamiliarity with the law etc. the fact that what you did is not illegal in your country etc.
Judgement or not, it's null and void on more than one account - improperly served, incorrect jurisdiction, unreasonable venue, etc. the list goes on. The error, unfortunately, lies with the judge here for failing to account for jurisdiction.
At the most basic level the case has no merit for the simple reason that nobody forces system administrators to use Spamhaus. It is an opt-in service and represents a decision by the administrators of the e-mail servers that they do not want mail from hosts listed in said RBL. End of story!
Who is worse? The spammer or the lawyer that gives him the time of day?
--- Commission free trading & free stock up to $500 - use http://share.robinhood.com/kelvinp6
a side benefit is that I am now an incredible lover with a huge penis and I get great deals on real estate loans.
C0ulddD You sa+isfie my w0me0n Tonite! I'm having trouble, because of my t1ny p//en15.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
In the USA, each party pays their own costs no matter what happens. However, in the UK, if you file an action and it does not win, then you have to pay the costs for the other party. So, at the best, they can force them in the UK legal system, and because the spammer is not in the UK, they can seek the spammer puts up security for costs (to ensure they pay if they don't win). Thus the spammer would never touch the UK system as they would end up loosing the money they pay their lawyers, plus the cost for spamhaus to defend it.
ps... IANAL - anymore.
A company I used to work for was being harassed by the Department of Revenue from another state demanding we collect sales taxes on mail order items shipped into their state. The advice of our lawyer was to hang up on them whenever they called and just throw away all correspondence without opening it. I was suprised, but they quickly got the hint and left us alone. I was told that if we had actually talked to them, it would be construed as "entering negotiations" and we'd be forced to comply. Our lawyer evidently thought this was what they were trying to do.
As always, IANAL, this is not legal advice and YMMV.
Shame on them from not coming to fight it,
So if you get an e-mail message telling you you're being sued in Nigeria, because some of the comments you made on you blog as aprt of your work with a non-profit can be construed as Libel and you're being sued for millions you don't have, you're going to go buy a plane ticket and head to Nigeria?
Us? I didn't appoint that judge, so stop blaming me. I really wish you had not appointed him, since that court is listed as one of the most unjust in the country according to the "judicial hellhole" report that monitors notably abusive courts where less than ethical lawyers tend to venue shop for cases with little merit. Stop it.
First of all, it is not that difficult to enforce a US judgment in England especially since a 1983 decision, Israel Discount Bank v. Hadjipateras, allowed the enforcement of a US $10 million judgment.
Secondly, it must be established that the US Court had jurisdiction under not just U.S., but English law. Jurisdiction can be established if the defendant was physically present in the foreign country or carrying on business in the country "at a definite and reasonably permanent place". I think that English Courts should take the position that a url is a definite and reasonably permanent place.
Thirdly, England might not recognize a US judgement if it is against it's Public Policy. For example, multiple and punitive damages are considered to be contrary to public policy. So, if an English law says "no spam allowed" and an American law says "allow spam", English law trumps.
So, Spamhaus really has nothing to worry about. But the rationale it gave...was slightly confused.