Slashdot Mirror
Judge Rules In Favor Of Spamhaus
Waylon writes "U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras has ruled in favor of The Spamhaus Project. e360 Insight responded on its homepage, saying the judge's ruling was 'a devastating loss of personal freedom for all U.S. citizens'. As opposed to shutting down a voluntary service which tries to mitigate the millions of unsolicited emails that e360 Insight pumps out every single day." From the article: "In his order, Judge Kocoras wrote that the relief e360insight sought is 'too broad to be warranted in this case' and that suspending the domain name would 'cut off all lawful online activities of Spamhaus, not just those that are in contravention' of the default judgment. He also called e360insight's motion one that 'does not correspond to the gravity of the offending conduct.'"
Way to go down kicking and screaming inanities...
It's true! Our constitutional right to not be able to get a dns lookup on spamhus.org has been torn away from us. Why oh why does Judge Kocoras hate us so much?
...making law from the bench! This one ruling for some fooreen company over a good-old, red, white and blue U.S. homegrown! How dare he! Probably a Democrat and communist, too.
What?
Spam? Yeah, it is good with a little cheese and...
Oh, THAT stuff!? Those guys need to be publically whipped and castrated! There ought to be a law that protects decent citizens from all that perverted material arriving in your mailbox without asking. I mean, one visit to whitehouse.com, fill in one little form and give 'em one little credit card and all of a sudden I get this crap in my mailbox! What if my kid opens my email?
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I really think that the judge realized that more was at stake than just SPAM. It has set an important precedant regarding the Internet and jurisdiction. Even though the US controls most of it, it is important to realize that the Internet is an ethereal place without solid jurisdictional boundaries. If the judge had signed away on pulling the domain name, it would have casted a devastating taint on how Law treats 'where' the Interent exactly is.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Oh please, for the love of God, I plead with you not to abuse the internet resources of e360insight. These good people are concerned about YOUR personal freedom, which you'd know if you went to their webpage to read their material. Please don't flood their contact page with insults and don't post random email addresses. I don't want people to put a huge loan on their web server -- I simply want each and every person at Slashdot to make up their own mind, based on their own exploration the information on their website
Un-bloody-real
Well, they can contact me at dream-freaking@on.com - that's the one I gave when I posted the following comment to what they had on the link supplied:
Actually, if the judge had ordered ICANN (an American corporation) to pull the plug on the domain, it most definitely would have affected them, regardless of the physical jurisdiction of the court.
Actually, even if the judge ordered ICANN to suspend their domain, ICANN would not be able to comply, because it is not within ICANN's power to do so.
The judge could order the registrar to pull the domain though.
The amount of power the US could potentially have over the Internet is rather frightening
The US has minimal power over the internet. The internet is a set of standards for computer networks. The US has some power over some domain names because the companies that manage these domain names are located in the US.
And should the US abuse its position, I'm sure other countries will compensate. Why does ICANN have such power? Because internet users say that they do. Why are the DNS roots authoritative? Because internet users say that they are. Should a critical mass of internet users disagree, then they lose this power.
Despite all the bitching about ICANN, generally speaking, they do a decent job. Certainly far better than the UN/ITU proposals to bring it under the control of the dictator's debating club on the east river.
Please, oh please! In the memory of my dear departed Aunt Myrtle please don't abuse their contact page! If you want to provide them with insightful (heh, I said insightful again) commentary, it is only reasonable to provide them with a real email address so they can reply! Using a random fake email address when you contact them would just be wrong. These freedom loving people are fighting for your rights!
The judge denied e360insight's motion to suspend the Spamhaus domain, but that doesn't mean the original ruling against Spamhaus was vacated. As far as I can tell, that still stands.
Yes, they got a judgment against Spamhaus. Judgments are meaningless if they aren't enforceable. Good luck enforcing it in the USA, since Spamhaus does not do business in the USA and has no assets in the USA to seize.
While some foreign judgments are enforceable in the UK, e360insight will have to go to a UK court and explain why their default judgment is valid, and why US law applies to a UK company which does no business in the USA. And since they're now in the UK, e360insight will have to explain why they are violating UK law relating to spam.
Highly unlikely to be enforced.
e360Insight's web site urges us to contact our Senators and Representatives, which is just what I did:
Dear Senator|Representative <XYZ>:
e360Insight, an American company, has recently sued Spamhaus, a British company, claiming that Spamhous's service, which lists the e-mail addresses and domain names of known spammers, has violated e360Insight's rights.
Spamhaus provides an invaluable service. Those of us responsible for administering e-mail services know and love the company. Though most users aren't aware of it, almost anyone who uses e-mail receives less unwanted e-mail because of Spamhaus.
e360Insight, as best I can tell from their website, is a major SENDER of unsolicited and/or unwanted SPAM messages. Their argument is incorrect because only individual e-mail administrators have the ability to block e-mail. Spamhaus has no such ability. We CHOOSE to use or ignore Spamhaus recommendations. If such recommendations compromised the e-mail service we provided, we would quickly stop using them due to user complaints.
A federal court has already ordered Spamhaus to pay $11.7 million (an unenforceable measure, since Spamhaus isn't in the US). e360Insight has also asked that Spamhaus's domain be shut down (which was was rejected by U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras). Please encourage Judget Kocoras and any other federal judges involved to dismiss e360Insight's frivolously lawsuit and protect the rights of American's to use Spamhaus, a valuable service that makes e-mail a usable form of communication.
http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.gov/