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."

Comments

All spammers must die!

[fe105]

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?

Killing people in general is not right, but if you do it in a humane way, like shoot them through the head with a .454 casul?

It can't be hard to find volunteers for doing this. Shooting casul is a blast! ;)

p.s. don't actually do this..

Color me confused.

[Kirin Fenrir]

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.

Re:Color me confused.

[Kierthos]

Ehhh... not quite. See, e360insight is claiming that they're not a spammer, and thus their inclusion on the Spamhaus list is hurting their business, their image, is defamatory, and/or whatever else they think that they can get away with. And, because of this decision the (obviously clue-impaired) judge agreed with e360insight.

The analogy (with regards to your reference to Consumer Reports) would be if Consumer Reports published an opinion that a car company strongly disagreed with and believed was incorrect. You know, like saying "The new Ford SUV gets excellent mileage, considering it runs on the souls of orphaned children."

Missed opportunity

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I dont know why Spamhaus missed this great business opportunity.

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

Re:wow

[theckhd]

They are preventing an illegal acting being commited in our country. Why should they give a shit?

Now let's pretend that the plaintiff in the case wasn't a spam company with a stupid name, but instead is a regular user who gets put on the list by mistake. From what I've read about Spamhaus, they tend to "not give a shit" in that sort of situation either, which is unfortunate. A good example why vigilante justice isn't always a good thing.

An even more interesting quandry: What if a large, well-recognized organization with deep pockets gets put on the list by mistake in the same fashion? Any bets as to how long it would take before they get removed?

I occasionally buy products from spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Blues Brothers?

[Stavr0]

ELWOOD
"Illinois spammers."

JAKE
"I hate Illinois spammers"

Re:I'll keep this in mind

[ledow]

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)

Re:Good for Spamhaus

[ronanbear]

Or to look at it another way.

American spammer files a nuisance lawsuit British company in Illinois for blocking spam

British company is forced to spend a fortune hiring relevant lawyers and defending itself against a lawsuit without any merit. Spamhaus also have to spend another fortune ensuring that it complies with other regions laws

Spamhaus decide that it is easier to remove spammer from list. Other spammers follow suit and Spamhaus suddenly isn't blocking all that much spam.

Alternatively Spamhaus say that since they are operating in England they should be sued under British law. They ignore the judgement and the FUD attacks and keep doing everything their own way.

The spanner in the works is that an Illinois judge on a power trip takes a disliking to a British company refusing to show up even though the case is bogus and the court shouldn't have taken the case in the first place due to juristiction issues. Wild judgement is issued with massive punative damages which does little to harm Spamhaus. It's so large they'll never be able to comply. Instead, it just forces another company to stay outside the US due to an out of touch legal system. Oh and it adds about $11m to the price any American company that buys Spamhaus has to pay.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[august sun]

How did the Illinois judge decide they had jurisdiction over a UK-only company in the first place?

Because this all happened in the second worst judicial hellhole in America.

What is a judicial hellhole you ask?

Judicial Hellholes are places that have a disproportionately harmful impact on civil litigation. Litigation tourists, guided by their personal injury lawyers seek out these places because they know they will produce a positive outcome - an excessive verdict or settlement, a favorable precedent, or both.

[quoted from the above link]