Spamhaus Asks Court To Dump Even The $27,000 Award To Spammer

from the spam-spam-spam-spam dept

Wed, Aug 4th 2010 2:26pm — Mike Masnick

Back in June we wrote about how the years-long lawsuit between "email marketing" (i.e., "spam") company e360 and anti-spam group Spamhaus concluded with a judge reducing an $11 million award down to just $27,000 for e360. If you don't recall, e360 sued Spamhaus for naming it on its top spammers list -- despite an awful lot of evidence that e360 does, in fact, engage in spam. Spamhaus, which is based in the UK, ignored the proceedings, which is why it got hit with the $11 million award. While, e360 can't be happy about the lower award (one has to imagine its legal costs were much greater than that), $27,000 is still a lot of money for an operation like Spamhaus -- especially when the organization was just stating an opinion -- and one that it backed up with plenty of evidence.

So now, Michael Scott points us to the news that Spamhaus has filed a motion to reconsider even the $27,000 award, noting that it believes there are some errors in determining the $27,000 number. The filing notes that such motions are rarely successful, but lays out the reasons why it makes sense in this case. Specifically, the method for calculating the award was not one of the methods that e360 asked for, meaning Spamhaus had no chance to point out problems with the methodology. Spamhaus also makes it clear that if the court does not reconsider the $27,000, it will likely appeal the case back up to an appeals court. I can understand why Spamhaus is doing this, but it could backfire. I would imagine that asking the court to reconsider could potentially lead to a judge reconsidering in the other direction as well...

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Filed Under: awards, defamation, spam
Companies: e360, spamhaus

19 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 4:26pm

Why is Spamhaus even responding to the lawsuit? Who cares if it's $11 million or $11 trillion if they can't collect?
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Yankee Infidel, 4 Aug 2010 @ 4:48pm

How the hell does any US court of jurisdiction over this?
Spamhaus should have send a letter to the court to appraise the judge of this fact (the lack of jurisdiction) and thus go pound sand.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2010 @ 4:56pm

Spamhaus is crap, I've seen it blacklisting legitimate servers for no reason (including my company's) then refusing to remove them, I've had my ISP's mail servers listed for MONTHS - so screw them, I hope they close shop regardless of how much I hate spam...
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- Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2010 @ 4:37am
  
  Re:
  Yeah, a lot of these "anti-spam" services are extortion schemes.
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James Velbedere, 4 Aug 2010 @ 11:36pm

No Jurisdiction over Spamhaus
The US court clearly never had any jurisdiction over Spamhaus, but nonetheless as Spamhaus was offered pro bono representation by a major US law firm they chose -on principle- to overturn what was a very poor ruling by a very poor and very biased judge.

Of course not being in US jurisdiction Spamhaus should not have answered the stupid US ruling at all, but since it's not cost them anything, why not make the stupid US judge eat humble pie and give the spammer a lesson he'll never forget. The spammer's legal bills alone put him out of business, great for all of us!

Spamhaus response to this case:
Case Answer: e360Insight vs. The Spamhaus Project
http://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement.lasso?ref=3
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2010 @ 5:43am

Good for them. Spamhaus are Nazis and refuse to remove IPs from their list even when there is clear evidence of cleanup, or simply no wrong doing. They even blacklist entire /24's because 1 IP in that range hit their spamtrap.

They, amongst a few others, are creating huge amounts of problems for providers, which end up costing us more just to deal with them.

They are making it worst for most providers, blocking IPs for years without possibility of unlisting, and in the process blocking lots of legitimate businesses from operating properly.

Now they even go as far as claiming to be able to determine hijacked IP blocks and asking others not to route or peer them.

They think they can police the internet without any authority in the matter.

I sincerely hope the judge awards the 11M back to e360 and those idiots go bankrupt; it would make the internet world a better place. Sites like SpamHaus are costing hosting companies too much money, time for them to pay up now.
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___________, 5 Aug 2010 @ 9:05am

Funny seeing spammers posting here as "Anonymous Coward" :)
Lots of "Anonymous Coward"s posting here who are SOOO obviously spammers hoping to spread FUD about their nemesis Spamhaus :)
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- Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2010 @ 10:09am
  
  Re: Funny seeing spammers posting here as "Anonymous Coward" :)
  No, some of us just don't have time to waste signing up. Have Mike lookup my IP, you'll see I work in a Datacenter for a somewhat big hosting company.
  
  SpamHaus have always been a problem, always. Unlike other problematic ones that usually die out after a few years, these bastards keep coming up with new ways to piss off sysadmins everywhere. We even had to implement special procedure to treat spamhaus first and as a priority because these guys threatened to keep us listed unless we acted within 24 hours of their complaints.
  
  So... lies, extortion, and simple god complex is what drives that company. I would be more than happy to see that boat sink, so would most sysadmins. Why else would most systems advise greatly against using their lists.
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  - Jim Nevis, 5 Aug 2010 @ 11:00pm
    
    Re: Re: Funny seeing spammers posting here as "Anonymous Coward" :)
    From your post it's quite clear you work in a datacenter that caters to a lot of spammers either out of greed or out of incompetence. Obviously if your datacenter is overrun by spammers you're going to see a lot of Spamhaus, stands to reason. Also very obvious why you don't want to name your datacenter. Spammy datacenters with admins like you who encourage the spam problem are what Spamhaus should actively block completely off the net in my opinion. Spammers may be good money to you but we the public do not want them and Spamhaus makes sure spammy datacenters like you tow the line OR ELSE. And it's that OR ELSE that you don't like. Well, get rid of your spammers, fire your lazy incompetent admin and become a responsible datacenter. I know, too costly to your bottom line.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2010 @ 10:05am
      
      Re: Re: Re: Funny seeing spammers posting here as "Anonymous Coward" :)
      Nice try, but no cigar. None of our IPs are listed there anymore. The point you are trying to make is en epic fail, seriously. Plus, we are on the top 50 safest networks to use according to hostexploit. I guess you wish you could be as good as we are, so you start flaming in the thread...
      
      So, instead of flaming, why don't you really look head-on at the problem? Yes really. No datacenters are safe from spammers, not even the one you appear to work at. Have you looked at the lists? Even Google is marked as a bad datacenter, full of spam and malware... so next time, research a little before flaming randomly, kthnx.
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Dave, 5 Aug 2010 @ 2:46pm

No jurisdiction?
I don't see why this case is still being dragged out if Spamhaus don't have a presence in the USA. Surely the courts there should know that they haven't got any rights over the organisation and therefore cannot enforce any "judgement"?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Aug 2010 @ 7:58pm

I'm Blacklisted!!?? Still!!??
Blacklisted for months? Years?

I think it's their way of telling your boss to find appropriately qualified personnel.

Prevent it. When it happens stop it. When you can't stop it quick enough you'd better have designed your mail systems with multiple identities and fault/fail networks.

If you can't or don't or haven't you're in the wrong field.
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Gene Cavanaugh, 5 Aug 2010 @ 8:30pm

Spamhaus
I am not sure about the UK, but I think it is the same - if the judge does "reconsider in the other direction", (s)he had better have a very solid reason - retaliation is not allowed in most jurisdictions, and lawyers love it; pretty easy to prove!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Aug 2010 @ 4:15am

I agree, these spam filters and website blockers, are , well, just worthless, seen websites and servers be blacklisted for sending spam, when it was newsletters people signed up to get, being told well you sent a lot of traffic at once, that is a sign of a high jacked system being used a spam zombie, and we can't help you until you can PROVE your system is clean, virus free, and fully updated, we laughed at that one, they demand PROOF of your system, but offer no real proof you did it

also gets the ISP threatening to shut you down, until I showed them the FULL header, don't know why they couldn't do that, with an email addy that I don't have ie fakeperson@mycompany.c@m, coming from an IP in China, my server is in Canada, they quickly apologized and stopped threatening me

They are only crying about the 27K because they failed to show up, to take it serious, if they would have done that, it would not have went down this way, then they should have gone to court and proved e360 spams, case closed

the business they do affects companies worldwide, now maybe they should have sued them in the UK,
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lilracergti, 27 Oct 2010 @ 8:12pm

If spamhaus influences US ISP companies then they should adhere to US laws. Laws should be followed where the companies affected are. Are they not the defenders of a spam free world? So if they are trying to do such a good thing why are they so crooked when it comes to following laws where they have an influence.
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Marc, 7 Dec 2010 @ 9:36am

Spamhaus needs to go.
They are a UK company. Their email laws in the UK are different then the US but they impose their own will on us. Our industry is protected under the Federal Can-Spam Act of 2003.

If i want to send 10billion emails off of 10,000 ip's it is my legal right to as provided by the federal government as long as i follow those guidelines.

Spamhaus is infringing on free trade in the United States that are protected by Federal Guidelines. I send mail. i send alot of mail ALOT OF MAIL. i do it legally. If you don't like my mail use 1 of the 3 unsubscribe links or addresses in my emails to remove yourself.

Spamhaus is irrelevant now however and they are sinking fast. My hosting companies don't care about spamhaus and neither does my bottem line delivery %age.

Cloudmark is pushing them out of business and i'm glad. If you want to stop spam i'm all for it. Stop bot net spam, stop porn, and viagra spam, but leave my single opt-in can-spam complaint email alone.
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Marc, 7 Dec 2010 @ 9:55am

Spamhaus Creates the problems
...and another thing. The reason companies who send email legitimately, try to hide who they are, is because spamhaus does NOT care about the laws of the countries it tries to police.

I ONLY send email to united states residences. I follow the US law. Spamhaus however doesnt care. They think any type of advertisement that is sent to bulk subscribers over large amount of IP'S are spam. Well it's not. So legit mailers have to file 50 DBAs, get 50 pobox's etcs just to change our identity to hide from spamhaus so they can send our mail legally.

if spamhaus didn't exist it would be easier to find the spammers but because they list everyone that meets THEIR criteria for a spammer, and not the acutal law of the land where they send mail this creates a mailing underground.

Spamhaus is making the problem worse at the end of the day. However fret no my mailer friends. They are on the way out. Not only can i feel it in my bones, i can see it in the industry. They ONLY police General internet domains, and 90% of general internet domains don't even use spamhaus. That mixed with several hosting companies saying 'we don't really care about spamhaus anymore' really makes me smile knowing my servers stay online every night. My mail gets delivered everyday and my subscribers stay happy.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2010 @ 8:52am

Spamhaus sucks!. Good to know they will be out soon.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2011 @ 1:54pm

Spamhaus Irresponsibility
I work for a mail-order company that sends a lot of email to its customers (and only its customers). The volume is high, but we only send to customers and we always honor opt-out requests. We were recently blacklisted by Spamhaus. When we tried to find out what we had done wrong so we could correct the problem, they would provide no information. When we provided a remediation plan to our ISP based on our best guess as to ways to avoid whatever sin we were accused of, we were told it would take "weeks" to get any kind of response from Spamhaus. This blacklisting is blocking normal email traffic, not just our marketing stuff. It is impeding our ability to do business and is costing us money. The way the decision is made to blacklist an emailer appears to be capricious, and Spamhaus does not feel it needs to answer to anybody. This kind of power and the abuse of that power is dangerous and must be curtailed. I don't know the merits of the e360 case, but I would like to see Spamhaus take some responsibility for its actions.
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