Spamhaus Fine Reduced From $11.7M To $27K 378
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."
What's more outrageous... (Score:5, Insightful)
is that e360 managed to judge-shop to find a judge so fucking stupid that he didn't simply and correctly say "fuck you, piss off and take your nuisance lawsuit with you, SPAMMER."
Re:What's more outrageous... (Score:5, Insightful)
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He didn't have any alternative; SpamHaus didn't show. The judge isn't allowed to take sides or consider evidence that wasn't presented.
If this wasn't the case, you would never be able to successfully sue for redress; the other side could simply fail to show up.
No the problem was they initially turned up and then walked out. No precedent, no story. Spamhaus/their lawyers f**ked up, the result was they had to pay a spammer for the f**kup. If they hadn't showed in the first place there would have been no judgement and no jurisdiction.
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I didn't know they originally did show up. It makes sense that if somebody sues you in some country where you don't live nor have any legal presence, they can just go screw themselves until they finally decide to sue you on your home turf.
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They did not "originally show up". Get your facts straight.
They did to have the case moved to federal court, when the judge declined their request they walked out. Get *YOUR* facts straight. As an RBL operator I have been following the case closely since it inception, I think I know what happened as I have read all the documents!
You'd better hope that you are wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the officers of foreign corporations can be held in contempt of court.
If contempt of a US court were enforceable outside the US then your entire legal system is going to collapse trying to prosecute the 5.7+ billion people outside the US most of whom probably hold the US court system in contempt if they care about it at all.
If they Spanhaus does not want to be subject to the laws of the United States they should remove all US companies from their database.
Spamhaus IS NOT subject to US law. It provides a European based service which US companies decide they want to use. Effectively those companies are coming to Europe and using a service provided by Europeans. You might want to think about this in reverse
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No the problem was they initially turned up and then walked out.
"Spamhaus didn't mount a defense in the case; the ruling was a default judgment in absence of counterarguments." [cnet.com] That's a little grey, but it sounds to me like Spamhaus didn't initially show up. If you've got a citation that suggests otherwise, please post it.
Spamhaus/their lawyers f**ked up
How do you figure? Spamhaus (wisely, IMHO) looked at the case, decided they could spend boatloads of money fighting a frivolous lawsuit which they would *probably* -- but NOT necessarily -- win, or since they are not in the U.S.' juri
Wouldn't really matter for their CEO (Score:2)
This is a civil suit, not a criminal matter. So their CEO is not personally liable. The whole point of a corporation is that liability is with the corporate entity itself. So if I run a business and I get sued, my personal assets like house and so on cannot be taken by the suit. It is limited to the business.
So their CEO would have a problem if he came to the US. It isn't like they'd throw him in jail. The only way Spamhaus would have a problem is if they opened a US branch. Then the spammers could go after
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No.
No the problem was they initially turned up and then walked out.
"Spamhaus didn't mount a defense in the case; the ruling was a default judgment in absence of counterarguments." [cnet.com] That's a little grey, but it sounds to me like Spamhaus didn't initially show up. If you've got a citation that suggests otherwise, please post it.
Judgement made in default != default judgement. Default Judgement = the defense is a no show. Judgement made in default = defense showed but stayed silent (or in the case of Spamhaus, walked out (= refused to answer) when the judge ruled that the court had jurisdiction)
Spamhaus/their lawyers f**ked up
How do you figure? Spamhaus (wisely, IMHO) looked at the case, decided they could spend boatloads of money fighting a frivolous lawsuit which they would *probably* -- but NOT necessarily -- win, or since they are not in the U.S.' jurisdiction, they could save themselves the worry and the stress by ignoring the lawsuit. The court that awarded the win to the spammer has no jurisdiction in the U.K. so as long as Spamhaus' CEO doesn't come to the U.S., what difference does it make to him? It's not like he's going to be extradited for this. If somebody sues me in a foreign country that I never intend to visit, the odds of me spending any money or effort to fight the lawsuit are somewhere between zero and none. Spamhaus did likewise.
Problem is Spamhaus originally appointed lawyers to go to the court. This was the mistake, when the lawyers appeared for Spamhaus, Spamhaus effectively 'appeared in court' (even if to contest jurisdiction). They should have, as you indicat
Re:What's more outrageous... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the judge could have taken a side when e360 Insight got the case admitted by falsifying the record that Spamhaus was in fact an Illinois company. He/She could have easily thrown it out right there.
Re:What's more outrageous... (Score:4, Informative)
From what I remember, that's not what happened. They testified that Spamhaus was conducting business in Illinois. Which they were, since they were providing their service to people and businesses in Illinois. The judge did the right thing by applying the law and not what Skuld-Chan thinks is "common sense".
Re:What's more outrageous... (Score:4, Insightful)
Which they were, since they were providing their service to people and businesses in Illinois.
Internet breaks things sometimes, but in this case they weren't even 'conducting business in Il' any more than a mail order company would by mailing purchases there.
No employees in the state, no physical premesis in the state.
I think that even the reduced judgement is going to have the problem of how can you go about collecting from Spamhaus? 360 has likely spent far more on this than spamhaus. In order to collect, they'll have to go to Spamhaus, THEN they'll start with the obstructing using their native country's legal system.
Since most countries won't extradite or hold penalties for stuff that isn't illegal in their home country, they'll essentially have to get Spamhaus retried in Britain.
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Incidentally, if you run a business that mails purchases to IL, that means you have customers there, ergo, you conduct business in the state. Not a complicated concept.
No, I disagree completely. The law should follow the physical location of the server, not the client.
Using the same test, if I visit a hotel in Colorado, and I live in NY, are they conducting business in NY? I was able to call them from NY, I was able to place my reservation in NY, my credit card bill came to NY. So, are they subject to all the laws of NY now?
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Re:What's more outrageous... (Score:4, Interesting)
They were suing in the wrong flipping jurisdiction.
Spamhaus is a UK organisation. They do not have any business presence in Illinois, or the US in general, as far as I know. Suing them in Illinois is about as useful as suing them in North Korea.
If they really wanted damages then they would have sued them in the UK (a country which incidentally has notoriously strict defamation laws). The fact Spamhaus "didn't bloody care" was because it was a frivolous lawsuit 1000's of miles from home.
I'm guessing the reason they didn't is because the UK legal system isn't so easy to shop for an easy win.
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Environmental protesters must not destroy oil rigs
... but petrol companies can...
Spamhaus was right to ignore it... (Score:5, Interesting)
So why didn't e360 try that? I see no info that they tried that at all. (Likely because they couldn't prove they weren't spamming people.) Instead they just sued Spamhaus in an effort to dry them up and get them out of the way.
As the summary pointed out Spamhaus is a voluntary service. Nobody is being forced to use Spamhaus. So why on earth should Spamhaus be forced to pay any damages at all? It's just insane that upon going through the court system _twice_ someone didn't ask "Well e360 can you prove you aren't spamming people?".
Anecdotal note: Many many moons ago there used to be an RBL named the BLARS Block List.
What Blars (yes it was a handle for an actual person) would do is block whole netblocks and then anybody who would complain he'd charge $250/hour to get removed IF he chose to do so. And you would be charged the fee even if he chose not to unblock you. So looking at that right there shows you what I consider the openly worst of behavior for an RBL service. Spamhaus is definitely not that.
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I support anti-spam efforts, but I support the rule of law more. So:
Complaining about how the court handled the case shows you're ignoring one key fact: Spamhaus chose not to appear in court, and by doing so tied the court's hands. Bottom line, although you might want to evaluate this on the assumption that e360 really was spamming, when only one party shows up, the court must take that party's story at face value and cannot make assumptions about whether that party might really be telling half-truths.
Sp
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So firstly criminal law doesn't come in here so your story about beating up a passer-by is not accurate.
Secondly, the US law doesn't apply to the rest of the world. Spamhaus chose not to appear in court because they:
1 - Weren't even in america
2 - Weren't doing anything illegal in their own country.
Since you support the rule of law I fully expect you to also support the deportation of Americans to the middle east to be put on trial for whatever stupid laws they have over there that don't apply to the US.
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You don't think there are civil penalties for beating someone up? Might want to fact-check that one, chief.
Spamhaus was acting in America regardless of where their offices are. They are subject to U.S. law, just as Google is subject to Chinese law if/when they operate in China (to cite just one recent example of many).
Re:Spamhaus was right to ignore it... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement.lasso?ref=3
Then read a breakdown from 2006 by Groklaw here:
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2006102700261694
Spamhaus is a FOREIGN company doing business on FOREIGN land. They have no need to show up for a court appearance in what amounts to a provincial court in another country.
If e360 had been based in Upper Monrovia or some similarly remote place other than the US this would have never have flown. And even if it had flown due to judge-shopping they would still be right to ignore it due to jurisdiction. The only reason this has gotten this far is that the US court system is broken and arrogant enough to think it applies to the entire world.
Got a problem with a foreign company doing business on their own soil? Take it up with your government. _Your_ courts have no jurisdiction to prosecute.
and regarding your analogy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. That's wrong. Because SpamHaus does not block anything.
The more correct analogy would be if you ask SpamHaus what their opinion is of Bob and they say "I don't like Bob".
Then when you don't do business with Bob, Bob gets mad and sues SpamHaus for damages.
And you ask someone else and they say that they don't like Bob OR his family.
Yes, that is what this is about. People asking other people what their opinion is of the people trying to send them email.
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Which is essentially what happened here, when Spamhaus didn't show up to defend itself the court was forced to rule against it. But even if they had shown up it wouldn't necessarily have bee
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Nobody is being forced to use Spamhaus.
Irrelevant. Nobody is forced to read the newspaper. The newspaper publisher can still be held liable for slander and libel.
So why on earth should Spamhaus be forced to pay any damages at all?
Duh. They lost the case. Even if they had showed up to defend the suit, they may still have lost. Losers pay. Otherwise, what is the point of civil lawsuits?
It's just insane that upon going through the court system _twice_ someone didn't ask "Well e360 can you prove you aren
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Only a fool would ever have used Blars, even when it was "maintained". They blacklisted us and sure enough, we heard from a few fools complaining that our mailserver was at fault for not 'delivering" email to their servers (which used Blars).
They didn't learn.. years after ORDB went offline, the ORDB folks did a "blacklist the whole world" trick to get people to stop addressing their domain/network (since so many admins were "using" them without ever subscribing to the RBL alerts or checking their homepage
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OTOH the legal fees could have reached the new lower fine anyway, which may be why they thought it wasn't worth it.
On the fence (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I mean, the reason e360 got awarded anything is because Spamhaus "Didn't Bloody Care".
So I mean, yeah, its scary that they lost a case where essentially they incorrectly identified spam (an easy mistake), for an opt in service no less. But its not that scary when you hear that they didn't do anything to defend themselves.
If you are on a golf course, looking back at the tee-box, and someone yells, "FOOUR" at you - what do you do?
Re:On the fence (Score:5, Informative)
So I mean, yeah, its scary that they lost a case where essentially they incorrectly identified spam (an easy mistake) ...
Who decided that they were incorrectly identified as spam? From the article:
e360 claimed that about 3 billion of the more than 6.6 billion emails it sent on behalf of clients
Please do tell me what kind of business (one that I've never heard of, mind you) sends out e-mails totaling the world's population and in what manner is that legitimate?
Curiously, nowhere does e360 have to defend this action. So, yeah, you can be on the fence if you think that any spammer should be able to sue Spamhaus (a free service) in any country on the globe and expect Spamhaus to front money for representation and whatnot in all those countries. Sounds like a pretty good strategy for spammers to take out Spamhaus since it's probably a growing thorn in their side.
As the submitter, that's where I stand on this issue.
Re:On the fence (Score:5, Insightful)
Curiously, nowhere does e360 have to defend this action.
It's not curious, Spamhaus didn't show up for court. The only evidence the court had to go by was e360's. It doesn't matter if a second grader could refute the evidence, there was nobody there to refute it.
e360 basically won by default.
IANAL ... (Score:2)
Refuting the "evidence" should be secondary to establishing jurisdiction.
Since SpamHaus was not operating in that Court's jurisdiction, shouldn't that have cause the case to be thrown out?
Otherwise, anyone anywhere in the world can sue you and you'd have the burden of representing yourself in all the diff
Yep, that's what happens (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone sues you, and you fail to show, the court will nearly always rule in their favour. The reason is that in civil court, the burden of proof is a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that their evidence is more likely than yours. So if you are not there to present any evidence, well then they win. For that matter they'll usually win in summary judgment, since there'll be no one to oppose the motion.
As such, if you get sued in a court that has the ability to enforce sanctions on you, you'd better s
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I won't argue that e360 are spammers. Anyone sending billions of promotional emails on behalf of anyone is clearly sending spam.
My question is, is Spamhaus the one who once you were on their list for whatever arbitrary reason, you couldn't ask, beg, or pay to get off of it, and used arbitrarily large blocks to accomplish it (like /8's in a few circumstances)? Looking at their site, you can now, but was that the situation when the lawsuit began? I know most were cooperative,
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While I agree they are spammers, thats just how the law works.
If I start a case against you for libel and slander against me, and the only evidence is that which I propose - the courts are going to have a hard time siding with you if you don't make any acknowledgement of it what so ever.
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Please do tell me what kind of business (one that I've never heard of, mind you) sends out e-mails totaling the world's population and in what manner is that legitimate?
e360 sends campaigns on behalf of many, many clients who hire them to do it. It's their business model. Any one of their clients sending that many emails in would be pretty far outside the norm. And also, let me remind you that a recipient can receive more than one email, so comparing it to the population of the earth is pretty ridiculou
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Check the related stories...
"Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer "
http://it.slashdot.org/story/08/04/11/1511255/Judge-In-e360-Vs-Comcast-Rules-e360-a-Spammer [slashdot.org]
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All Spamhaus would have needed to do is pay for one hour of a lawyer's time to write a motion to dismiss, and let it stand with that as their sole defense. A decent judge would have then thrown it out. I'm sure the EFF or similar would have gladly supplied a free lawyer.
But in the U.S. court system, it takes *SOMEONE* asking for it to be dismissed. Judges don't often have a lot of leeway if it even vaguely looks like the suit MIGHT be legit. But as soon as the defendant asks for it to be dismissed, the
Re:On the fence (Score:4, Insightful)
Suppose I got ticked off over something you wrote on Slashdot, and sued you in a foreign jurisdiction. Would you pay for an hour of a foreign lawyer's time to show up and deny jurisdiction?
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I don't suppose Spamhaus is actually obligated to pay this fine, either, unless they were sued in the country they're actually in.
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They didn't care, because they're a British company not under the jurisdiction of a US court on the matter. They basically said "please fuck off" and walked out. From one of the links ...
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If you are on a golf course, looking back at the tee-box, and someone yells, "FOOUR" at you - what do you do?
I'd duck, then I'd wait until he reached his ball and then I'd brain him with my 4-iron because he hit into my group.
Now, if he'd been in the tee-box on an adjacent hole, I'd merely duck.
Goodluckwiththat (Score:5, Interesting)
My Support (Score:3, Insightful)
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The amount of taxpayer money involved in having a court enter a default judgment is effectively zero.
There's a little bit of time for the court clerk to enter the case on the docket, then the default judgment is signed. Not much more to it than that.
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>The amount of taxpayer money involved in having a court enter a default judgment is effectively zero.
Are you kidding. Just an hour of the courts time (the court employees, minions, infrastructure, salary, benefits, pensions, etc) and an hour of labor from dozens of people. An hour of one court room is probably a real dollar amount of more than the damn settlement. This is frivolous. This is costly to tax payers. Lets at least accept the real costs here, regardless of the merits or outcomes of the case.
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I'm not underestimating it. If no answer is filed to a complaint, a default judgment takes about as few of the court resources as is possible. The clerk receives a complaint. The clerk enters a little data into the system, stamps the summons, and puts it back in the mail to the plaintiff. When the proof of service is received, that's put in the file. When the default judgment request comes in, the clerk stamps that, updates the system to reflect entry of the judgment, and then it's done.
In the unlikely
All emails from e360 should be blacklisted (Score:5, Interesting)
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A fine idea. it could be referred to as an "opt in" list of people who want their "services".
Honesty is punishable, therefore creative dishonesty is a reasonable response.
e360 (Score:2)
It's their own damn fault (Score:2)
You don't just get to decide for yourself *after you've already begun the process* that it no longer applies to you. Once you start showing up to court, you have to continue showing up... except in the very rare case where you're provisionally appearing strictly for the purpose of debating proper jurisdiction. This is like saying "time out... hold on, have we started playing the game yet?".
After you submit to jurisdiction, it takes a judge's ruling to say you're not. If you just stop showing up the judge ha
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Once you start showing up to court, you have to continue showing up... except in the very rare case where you're provisionally appearing strictly for the purpose of debating proper jurisdiction.
I thought that's exactly what Spamhaus did.
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Suppose a defendant shows up every day and loses the case in a court with jurisdiction in country A.
Suppose the defendant does not live in or operate in country A. Suppose the defendant leaves country A and never comes back.
How is the ruling going to be enforced?
It isn't a fine. (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a damage award, and probably less than the plaintiffs paid their lawyers. It also isn't a "scary precedent". It isn't a precedent at all: it's what normally happens when you fail to show up and present your case.
> ...foreign judge...
So you feel that a USA court should refuse to hear a case brought by a USA plaintiff just because the defendent is foreign?
If Spamhaus had bothered to show up and present a defense they could have gotten the case dismissed with prejudice and had a good shot at being awarded fees and expenses.
Re:It isn't a fine. (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me... I'm British and I want to sue you in a British court for something that isn't illegal in the US. The fact that you've never set foot in Britain doesn't matter. Get your arse over here within the next three weeks or I'll award me some of your money (which I can't force you to hand over either, and which has never been held in Britain) in your absence.
Does that make more sense to you with the positions reversed?
If you want to sue someone, you have to prove that they are conducting business in an area, that within that area they are breaking the law, and that they know that and can attend your court case. Otherwise, you're just making an *international* arse of yourself. It's a British company, operating in solely British territory, doing something that is perfectly legal in Britain. Why you think they should even ever have responded to the case is beyond me. It's called "jurisdiction" and never has the word applied more.
Otherwise every crankpot will sue every foreign company on trumped-up charges, the companies might never attend the court in question because they would have to travel and/or hire representation, that the offence they are charged with might not even be illegal in their jurisdiction and yet, in their absence, you think that the case should default in your favour.
I hereby sue Microsoft (US) for failing to offer Windows XP N (The EU edition) in their jurisdiction, or the US Customs for breaching the EU data protection laws that they never agree to abide by. If they don't appear in court, I win by default? Pfft.
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Before you can get a judgment against someone (at least in the US), the court has to have "personal jurisdiction" over them, and they have to be served with the summons and complaint.
The problem in this case is that Spamhaus was sued in some random Illinois state court. Apparently it was served with the complaint, because it then appeared, and had the case removed to federal court. It then filed an answer to the complaint, before withdrawing the answer and not responding any further.
Once Spamhaus was invo
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you'd have a point, except that you don't (Score:3, Informative)
You'd have a point, except that in this case you don't.
Spamhaus did initially show up, which was an acknowledgement that the US court has jurisdiction. Had Spamhaus either entirely ignored the suit or stayed to convince the judge that they were a wholly foreign corporation with no US presence, that'd be fine. But they half-assed it, and so the judge had to provide a ruling; absent any representation for Spamhaus, a default damage award was entered.
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It's a British company, operating in solely British territory, doing something that is perfectly legal in Britain. Why you think they should even ever have responded to the case is beyond me. It's called "jurisdiction" and never has the word applied more.
Did this British company have any users of its service in the United States? I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure a clever one could try and make a case for jurisdiction based on Spamhaus offering its services to Americans. Something along the lines of "Your honor, Spamhaus has admitted that thousands of companies in the United States currently employ its services in operating their mail servers. By this very admission, Spamhaus conducts business in the United States. Although it may not charge for these serv
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Why should they bother exactly? My understanding is that even if they loose it makes no difference to them because they're not even in the US.
Do you really think they're taking this seriously? It's just another one of those lolamerica stories we hear over here.
Oh good, nice logic (Score:2)
Hence forth every US citizen will have to travel ANYWHERE in the world were ANYONE at all chooses to sue them for ANYTHING at all.
This new law co-signed by the travel industry who would love to voice their support but are to busy singing "we're in the money, we're in the money".
If you disagree with this new law then you are saying John Hasler is a twit.
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No, but when the defendant is foreign and the defendant's actions took place on foreign soil, it seems a bit silly to try the defendant in a US court of law. Why not try the defendant in the jurisdiction where the defendant's actions actually took place, under the laws of that jurisdiction?
Where the action is aimed. (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the theory is that you direct harm to a jurisdiction, you are subject to that jurisdiction. See Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calder_v._Jones [wikipedia.org]
Now if you are in Spam, hijack a system in Korea to send spam to China, where should you be liable?
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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...
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Now if you are in Spam, hijack a system in Korea to send spam to China, where should you be liable?
I'm going to assume you meant 'Spain', not 'Spam' in the first instance.
First, criminal jurisdiction can be different than civil jurisdiction, but what generally would happen is that the diplomats in Korea and Spain would conference to determine jurisdiction. China would have limited involvement, as 'spam' is a lower offense than hijacking a system. Anyways, determining jurisdiction would be a complicated, diplomatic, and political game. For example, Spain would likely refuse to extradite if Korea has su
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Yes actually - a state court should refuse a case with a foreign litigant that does zero business in that state. They aren't support to take on cases like that. E360 Insight submitted a false report when they told the court that Spamhaus operated in Illinois.
Wow, impressive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I want a job where I get $27k for a month. ... But not if I have to be an OBVIOUS SPAMMER to do it, like e360, because I have ethics, unlike e360.
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Keeping in mind the original lawsuit started back in 2006? So its more like 562 dollars a month.
eldavojohn kills babies (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I have it on very good authority that eldavojohn kills babies and eats them for breakfast. He also drove his last 5 employers/clients to insanity resulting in their bankruptcy, and in 2 cases suicide. He is a horrible evil person, and you should never associate with him or employ him.
Remember, nobody's forced to listen to me so I should be allowed to say whatever the hell I want.
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Right, is there a point you are trying to make?
It's all about the money, of course (Score:2)
Some justification to fining Spamhaus (Score:5, Insightful)
While nobody likes spammers (except *maybe* their mothers) and Spamhaus is a great project and useful tool for fighting spam, there is still a problem here: As someone who is a mail admin for several companies, it's pretty outrageous when an RBL list marks you as a spammer (and we're not, of course). It can cost serious money when business emails aren't delivered, it can take serious time to resolve the problem, and it also causes embarrassment for the business.
I don't know Spamhaus intimately, but for most RBL's there is no accountability or appeal. They get to publicly call you a bad name (intentionally damaging your reputation and encouraging others to act on it), and expect you to just take it. They act completely irresponsibly, and assert that, effectively, accountability doesn't scale -- they couldn't possibly review all the businesses they slander via their algorithm. That doesn't cut it.
Imagine someone created an algorithm that claimed to detect people who are frauds via their online presence, and publicly posted its output. Imagine you were on that list and people stopped doing business with you. Is it permissible for the list's owners to say, 'well, false positives are too expensive to detect, so if you're a false positive on that list, too bad'?
While RBLs are very helpful services, they must be accountable, just like everyone else in the world. Nobody else gets to say, 'it's just too expensive to be responsible for my actions'.
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Except in this case, we're not talking about a company that got 'wrongly' flagged as spammers. These whorehoppers sued over 3 billion blocked emails. That's several times higher than the number of humans with internet access. Can you think of any legitimate reason for sending out that many emails?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know - maybe they made the right choice? If the verdict is unenforceable (and it looks like it is) then defending the case would have been a waste of money.
Maybe some lawyer can answer this: if a case is won by default, can that establish a legal precedent?
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody else gets to say, 'it's just too expensive to be responsible for my actions'.
Except for Oil companies, governments, mafia....
Re: (Score:2)
Consider it this way: you publish a list of criteria for a list and then publish the list. Others can do as they see fit. Seems like the damage comes from the others, not the list maker so long as they comply with their rules.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
This defense doesn't work for the torrent aggregation sites (Pirate Bay, Isohunt, etc.) and it would only work here if the various spam lists really were willing to staff the "unlist us" addresses as thoroughly as the "list us" addresses.
I work at a nonprofit that has health care and gang outreach as two chunks of what we do. I have had emails inviting a group of people to a meeting around gang violence flagged as spam in the past, because the subject line was thought to be spammy. Heaven forfend that one
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Well said, AC. On the other hand, to get around that you would only need to create a "Don't Like Their Email RBL" with the explanation "I received email that I don't like from these IP addresses". As long as no further claims are made about the emails or the IPs on the list, this is as legally actionable as someone saying they don't like Apple, Nike, and Starbucks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
for most RBL's there is no accountability or appeal. They get to publicly call you a bad name (intentionally damaging your reputation and encouraging others to act on it), and expect you to just take it. They act completely irresponsibly, and assert that, effectively, accountability doesn't scale -- they couldn't possibly review all the businesses they slander via their algorithm. '.
Spamhaus is no more accountable than the rest, but their removal mechanism is fast and clean. You're describing something more like SORBS that causes more harm than good in the fight against spam.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The way to not send spam is to not use email commercially. Any form of email that is sent out from a company that is not requested in writing (in triplicate!) by an anti-spam zealot is spam.
We have a double-opt-in mailing list. We have been blocked because the confirmation to join the email list has been sent to spam traps. Simple answer here is not to use a mailing list.
Receipts mailed to anti-spam zealots are considered to be spam and reported. This takes someone's time to sort out and try to get unbl
Still not bloody caring. (Score:2)
If they didn't care earlier, why should they care now?
It's still ridiculous on top of being unenforceable. Maybe they should sue e360 in Britain for the lulz.
Doesn't matter if users opt-in (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
People proactively buy the newspaper too. Doesn't mean the newspaper publisher can't be held liable for libel and slander. Spamhaus publishes a news report in DNS about which IP addresses are trustworthy. If they get it wrong and that harms someone, there is ample cause for a tort.
That people opt-in to Spamhaus is not relevant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your analogy about newspagers is a fail - it is constructed wholly to support your argument, but it is ridiculous. If you would just READ the article you would know this was not a libel OR slander case.
SpamHaus does not CAUSE anything. Spamhaus is a fact-based list which publishes addresses which send Unsolicited Bulk Email. You can not escape or spin your way past this fact (what planet are you from, anyways, where you would even TRY?)
Next, SpamHaus has not control or access to my servers.
If you are lookin
tortuous... (Score:2)
Now, I despise spam at least as much as anyone here... on the other hand, I *really* have issues with some of the blacklist projects. I think spamhous, and definitely dnlsorbs, has blacklisted *me*... or, rather, as near as I can tell, they blacklisted an ISP more than once... and the last time, I was on RCN in Chicago, which provides 'Net access for much of the city, and they blacklisted all or part of their *entire* address range.
That's not acceptable.
And it was a pain to get off. At least they're "slight
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Spamhaus doesn't do a whole ISP-level block unless something pretty egregious is happening.
The usual process goes: /32 block, more spam, complaint to ISP, no response /25 and /29 depending on identification of block size, more spam, complaint to ISP, no response /24, more spam, complaint to ISP, no response
1. Complaint to ISP, no response
2.
3. escalation to block somewhere between
4. escalation to
5. escalation to ISP's corporate mail servers - usually something happens at this point when suits notice their ow
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly!
A much better system would be a DNSWL. White list all the legitimate companies and throw them off when they spam people. That way you aren't saying anything bad about anyone. You are simply not saying something. Companies need to apply to be on the list and can get thrown off if they are proven to spam people.
I guarantee it would be shorter list than a black list and would have none of the liability.
I'd like to see them send a message to this judge (Score:3, Interesting)
"NUTS"
Frankly, cases and rulings like this illustrate just how out of control the judiciary is. We seriously should consider bringing back the practice of tar and feathering as a means to punish judges, especially unelected and unfirable for life Federal judges, offer them the choice: Resign or tar and feathers.
Well jeesh (Score:2)
If e360 doesn't like Spamhaus, then don't use it! :)
Also, e360 should tell all of its customers that in order to receive the 6 billion+ emails, that they should not use SpamHaus on their mail servers. Oh, wait....
Wasn't there a case back of some company that made anti-spyware software that got sued by a company because their sw was labeled malware?
Though I agree that they've done nothing wrong: (Score:2, Informative)
from their site: [spamhaus.org]
"To meet public demand for its DNSBLs, Spamhaus has built one of the largest DNS infrastructures in the world. Its network of over 60 public DNSBL servers spread across 18 countries serves many billions of DNSBL queries to the public every day, free of charge."
for a business to operate equipment in a country, that equipment is required to follow laws pertaining to that country.
Lawyers (Score:2)
Seems right to me (Score:2)
To me, this looks just like a case of libel. (Or slander. Or whatever.) IANAL.
Party A said, "Party B is a spammer."
Party B said, "I am not, and now you've cost me money because of your accusations."
Party B took Party A to court and won. They got money from Party A to cover the money they lost because Party A libeled them.
Party A could have gone to court and said, "They ARE spammers. Here's the proof," and they might have won. Party A didn't bother.
I really don't see the problem here, now that the mone
Re: (Score:2)
It's not libel or slander if it's true.
In the United States, truth is an *absolute defense*
e360 is a spammer. Period.
They should be blackholed at the backbone level.
--
BMO
distasteful and counterproductive corpspeak (Score:4, Informative)
I think it is important to note that Spamhaus is a service that people proactively utilize.
If we're inventing new terms, let's have them be sensible? "Proactive" and "utilize" (in this sense) are both pretty bad.
Proactive is just about redundant and doesn't exactly convey the sense that's intended. A person being proactive isn't "in favor of being active", they are "taking initiative". It's nice to have a simple term to express this, but let's invent something other than "proactive".
When one "utilizes" something they cause that thing to become ("-ize") useful ("util-"). They're not merely using it. They are converting or applying something so that it can be productive or effective where in its former state (unconverted or not thus applied) it was not. Spamhaus lists? Already useful.
It is important to note that Spamhaus is a service that many people take the initiative to use.
I know these terms have been around and aren't being invented here at this moment. I'm saying they're neologisms (or maybe in utilize's case a "neosemantism") that are best not promoted. The more you conflate meaning or get vague with meaning in language, the stupider you make us all. If you're going to change language, do it in an intelligent way. Please don't push us towards an idiocracy.
Re: (Score:2)
With so many new internet and computing technologies emerging, and with the spin of legal jargon, it's no wonder that judges really dont know how to rule.
I expect more of these types scratch-your-head judgments until the courts get a junk-mail bin for their cases.
When I think we'll finally start to see some sanity in all this is when the people of the next generation who are more tech savvy get into judicial positions. They will have grown up all their lives with technology and and have at least some idea how it works. Then we'll likely start to see less of these odd judgments.
Re: (Score:2)
i'd love to see a spammer company go up against google...
If google doesnt buy them out ouright (and fire every single employee), they will just open up such a big can of lawyers, their documents will blot out the sun...
Honestly, i appreciate the whole 'Do no evil' mantra, but when it comes to these kind of douche-bags, Google can go nuts!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Good thing you posted AC. You could get sued for libel!