Spamhaus Fine Reduced From $11.7M To $27K

eldavojohn writes "In 2006, anti-spam crusader Spamhaus was sued for 'defamation, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage and interference with existing contracts' after blocking 'promotional e-mails' from e360. What with the case being in Illinois and Spamhaus being a British outfit, Spamhaus didn't bloody care. So, e360 was awarded $11.7 million in damages, which was later thrown out in an appeals court with a request for the lower court to come up with actual damage estimates instead of the ridiculous $11.7 million. (e360 had originally stated $135M, then $122M, and then $30M as sums of damages.) As a result, the actual damages were estimated to be just $27,002. While this is a massive reduction in the fine and a little bit more realistic, I think it is important to note that Spamhaus is a service that people proactively utilize. They don't force you to use their anti-spam identification system — it's totally opt-in. And now they're being fined what a foreign judge found to be 'one month of additional work on behalf of the customers' to a company they allegedly incorrectly identified as spam. Sad and scary precedent."

Comments

Re:Where the action is aimed.

[flibuste]

Now if you are in Spam, hijack a system in Korea to send spam to China, where should you be liable?

You've answered your own question: See Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984)..

Unless the code of law in USA takes precedence over the whole world (which a lot of people from the aforementioned country tend to think), jurisprudence in USA won't hitch the back of anyone in Korea, China, or UK for the matter...