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ICANN Grants Temporary Reprieve to Spamhaus
daringone writes "ICANN released a statement that says they "...cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend or place a client hold on Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name" They do, however leave the door open for the registrar that registered the domain name to then be forced to turn the lights off for Spamhaus."
Judges aren't required to know how technology works, they just make rulings that affect it.
Basically, ICANN is saying, "It's not our job to suspend domain registrations; it's the registrar's job. We just coordinate registrars."
Instead they demonstrated an admirable restraint and intelligence, in a situation where both the Judge and Spamhaus have failed to do the same.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Main idea IMHO is that in this way ICANN can say, nicely, NO to US court ruling. If they agreed they would actually gave up their independence and would become easy target for more attacks from US jurisdical system.
In this way they effectively explained themselves from executing court orders.
Good job for freedom of speech ICANN!
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
What did the judge do?
I just glanced over the thing, and it says that at a certain point Spamhaus' laywers stopped showing up to court, so the judgement defaulted to the plaintiff. I'm pretty sure the judge didn't have a lot of leeway to do any judging at that point.
(oh yeah, great job using "mail", "judge", and "bomb" together - enjoy being an enemy combatant... ah crap! I'll see you at Gitmo...)
sic transit gloria mundi
Tucows will probably be a little more savvy in dealing with the complaint. Something along the lines of "We cannot comply with any order by this court because doing so would breach Canadian Contract law". Rather than Spamhaus's "We want to change the jurisdiction to the district court". "We do not accept the juriosdiction that we have just accepted".
Being incorporated in Canada does not exempt them from Illinois law. That's like saying a Canadian citizen can't be prosecuted for crimes committed in Illinois.
You're oversimplifying. First, this is civil law, not criminal. Second, no crime was committed. Third, This is an Illinois court ordering a canadian company to suspend a service they contract to a UK organization. If the service is provided in the US, then the court might have the authority, but if the service is not, there is some serious question of jurisdiction here. You can't go ordering companies that do business both within and outside the US to take arbitrary actions outside the US in response to civil suits within the US.
In Illinois?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
For a while now, the EU and other bodies have been grousing about ICANN being under the control of the US (Dept of Commerce, IIRC). I wonder if this stance *against* a US court will somewhat mollify those objections? ICANN's hardly a US puppydog if it distances itself from the US court system...right? Maybe?
I realize they aren't acting in defiance of a court order (they haven't even been contacted by the court yet, if I understand the press release), but at least they're toeing the "We're independent and neutral" line.
Just junk food for thought...
The judge ordered a judgement against a UK company from the US, and is trying to force a Canadian company to comply to a US judgement. That's what.
It's very simple:
The United States is not the United Kingdom or Canada.
No matter how many USians think they have the right to police the world, US law stops at the US border.
This judge is trying to force US law into the UK. That's braindead and wrong.
End of story.
I'll bet Spamhaus.org is being transferred to a UK registrar right now. I wouldn't risk anything with Tucows, they have too much going on in the US.
The court has the authority to order whatever it likes. If the person/representative of the company so ordered fails to comply, then a warrant can be issued for their arrest. That applies no matter what country the subject of the order is in.
However, that said, if the subject of the order is in a different country, they can choose to ignore the order on the assumption that their home country will not prosecute or extradite them. For something this trivial, there's almost no chance that they would do so.
First Spamhaus, then online gambling sites that are perfectly legal in other countries. After that will come torrent sites, crack sites or anyone who does anything that might be illegal in the USA but legal elsewhere.
Fine, all those things will be hosted on servers outside of the US, with domains registered through registrars outside the US, and the people running them will avoid visiting the US.
All courts of all countries are perfectly free and entitled to make whatever orders they like; they just can't necessarily expect them to be enforced, except in their own jurisdiction.
ObDisclaimer: I don't even pretend to be a lawyer, that's not legal advice, rely on it and you're an idiot, etc.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Not only that, but Spamhaus' registrar is Tucows. Tucows is a Canadian company. Let's see if a U.S. judge will try to exert jurisdiction in Canadia.
Pull my finger for my public key.
Influence, yes. Legal rights, no. All they could do was plead their case and hope the Swedish authorities did what they wanted them to do. If the Swedish authorities would have just told them to bugger off, nothing would have happened.
"But this one goes to 11!"
A Federal Court has no jurisdiction over a UK company either.
One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that anyone can setup the services they want. Some are abusive, most are not. Your proposal says that individuals have no reason to do what they want to do. The only way to go is to trust corporate-supplied services. That is not the Internet I signed up to.
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