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Appeals Court Tosses $11M Spamhaus Judgement
Panaqqa writes "In a not unexpected move, the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the $11 million awarded to e360 Insight and vacated a permanent injunction against Spamhaus requiring them to stop listing e360 Insight as a spammer. However, the ruling (PDF) does not set aside the default judgement, meaning that Spamhaus has still lost its opportunity to argue the case. The original judge could still impose a monetary judgement, after taking evidence from the spammer as to how much Spamhaus's block had cost them. This is unfortunate considering the legal leverage the recent ruling concerning spyware might have provided for Spamhaus."
Shouldn't I be able to list any domain or IP in any database I please? Isn't it the responsibility of the people using the database to determine whether it's a bad idea? Isn't the real issue between the people blocking email and their customers who are missing email?
You can, as long as that database doesn't infringe on the rights of other companies to do their business. If you listed Microsoft, SCO, and Apple all in a database of "douchebag companies", posted that on your site, and then told everyone to block them for being douchebags, I have a feeling you would get sued (and rightfully so). If you chose to have your douchebag database on your own machine and blocked away w/o telling anyone anything about it, it would be fine.
Unless you can prove to a judge that Microsoft, SCO, and Apple are all douchebags then I suggest that you don't go forward with that plan or you might end up with an 11 million dollar judgment against you.