4th Circuit Court Sides With a Spammer

bulled writes to tell us about coverage on CNet regarding a ruling a couple of weeks back that allows a spamming company to procede with their suit against a spamfighter. The 4th Circuit court ruled that the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, much derided here, trumps the Oklahoma law under which anti-spam activist Mark Mumma sued Omega World Travel for spamming him. The ruling allows Omega World Travel's countersuit, for defamation, to go forward. From the article: "'There's been a lot of activity in the states to pass laws purportedly to protect their citizens' from spam, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University. 'The 4th Circuit may have laid waste to all of those efforts.'"

Comments

Re:Important Because

[Kadin2048]

What's unfortunate in this case is that the activist has said that he's not going to appeal the decision due to lack of funds.

Currently there is a conflict between various state and Circuit courts as to whether the CAN-SPAM act overrides stricter State laws regulating unsolicited email. The only thing that's going to resolve the issue is a ruling from the USSC, barring further legislation to clarify the issue. If this guy were to push on, he could conceivably bring it before the Supreme Court and get a real decision; more importantly, he'd probably concentrate enough media attention on it so that even if the decision were to go in favor of the spammers, it might make a tougher anti-spam law a campaign issue in the national arena. Right now, the spammers win if people don't make noise.

Re:..of course it does.

[Atlantis-Rising]

Well, of course. If you think the law is wrong, then obviously there's a problem- but that doesn't make the ruling bad.