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spammers win big judgment against anti-spammer spamhaus

Is the fact that the various public/private ISPs use the Spamhaus blacklist by their own free will immaterial to this lawsuit? The way I figure it:

- Spamhaus lists Site X on their blacklist. Whether Site X is a spammer or the Red Cross, whatever. It's their perogative.
- Comcast choose to use Spamhaus's blacklist to filter spam out of their customers' inboxes. Again, to do so is their perogative.

How can you then sue Spamhaus for maintaining a list? It's not their fault people use them - arguably if they went buckwild and blacklisted a bunch of people undeservedly, people would just drop their list from being checked. I don't get how you can sue on the basis of how a private entity uses another private entity's product.
 
IIRC, the defendant (Spamhaus) first requested the court to re-schedule (terminology?) at a different venue/jurisdiction. When the court declined, Spamhaus decided they didn't need to even bother going to court, and the judge was force to give the plaintiff a default ruling. Although the damages are a bit steep for the case.
 
Originally posted by: yllus
Is the fact that the various public/private ISPs use the Spamhaus blacklist by their own free will immaterial to this lawsuit? The way I figure it:

- Spamhaus lists Site X on their blacklist. Whether Site X is a spammer or the Red Cross, whatever. It's their perogative.
- Comcast choose to use Spamhaus's blacklist to filter spam out of their customers' inboxes. Again, to do so is their perogative.

How can you then sue Spamhaus for maintaining a list? It's not their fault people use them - arguably if they went buckwild and blacklisted a bunch of people undeservedly, people would just drop their list from being checked. I don't get how you can sue on the basis of how a private entity uses another private entity's product.
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It is call liable or Slander. I can't go put yullus on the sex offender list if your not a sex offender.

Spamhaus problem is they choose not to defend themselves in court. So they lost because they failed to justife name the company as spammers.
 
The real issue is if they stop the spam list from their DNS, will the rest of the world be flooded with spam?
 
Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
IIRC, the defendant (Spamhaus) first requested the court to re-schedule (terminology?) at a different venue/jurisdiction. When the court declined, Spamhaus decided they didn't need to even bother going to court, and the judge was force to give the plaintiff a default ruling. Although the damages are a bit steep for the case.
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that makes sense. they probably filed a special appearance, lost, and got a default against them. so, with no other evidence, the spammer got all it wanted.
 
that makes sense. they probably filed a special appearance, lost, and got a default against them. so, with no other evidence, the spammer got all it wanted.
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No, they didn't file ANYTHING in response. They are based in the UK and (rightfully) don't believe that court has any juristiction on them. Sine they no-showed at the US court they got a really crappy default ruling. Now they have to respond to the filing and that opens the door for others to sue them in any venue.

We (US) scewed the pooch on this one and are going to be paying for it for some time.
 
Perhaps this explains the MASSIVE increase in spam that my company's spam filter has been getting since Monday? It's increased by almost 100% from the norm over the past 2 years.

EDIT: I'm still seeing spamhaus blocking stuff through the RBL, but not nearly as much.
 
That's pretty f'd up right there.

I have no idea how international court cases work. Can anyone just file a law suit against a country in another company and win if that company doesn't show up?

 
Originally posted by: vi_edit
That's pretty f'd up right there.

I have no idea how international court cases work. Can anyone just file a law suit against a country in another company and win if that company doesn't show up?
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In theory the court has to have some jurisdiction. In this case the company suing filed with their local court and that court is trying to claim jurisdiction. Now that company could not have gone and filed in say Florida unless they had offices and did business there.
 
Originally posted by: bsobel
that makes sense. they probably filed a special appearance, lost, and got a default against them. so, with no other evidence, the spammer got all it wanted.
Click to expand...

No, they didn't file ANYTHING in response. They are based in the UK and (rightfully) don't believe that court has any juristiction on them. Sine they no-showed at the US court they got a really crappy default ruling. Now they have to respond to the filing and that opens the door for others to sue them in any venue.

We (US) scewed the pooch on this one and are going to be paying for it for some time.
Click to expand...

wow, they didn't even bother challenging the jurisdiction? that's just asking for it right there.
 
Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Perhaps this explains the MASSIVE increase in spam that my company's spam filter has been getting since Monday? It's increased by almost 100% from the norm over the past 2 years.

EDIT: I'm still seeing spamhaus blocking stuff through the RBL, but not nearly as much.
Click to expand...

Same here, our exchange servers are buzzin, lots of angry employees at the increase in spam too.
 
Originally posted by: smack Down
It is call liable or Slander. I can't go put yullus on the sex offender list if your not a sex offender.

Spamhaus problem is they choose not to defend themselves in court. So they lost because they failed to justife name the company as spammers.
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No, AFAIK this has nothing to do with a libel or slander charge. Those are very specific charges which I'm not even sure apply to entities and not only individuals.

According to the spammer's case history page, Spamhaus conducted business defamation and tortuous interference with their business relationships.
 
Originally posted by: ElFenix
wow, they didn't even bother challenging the jurisdiction? that's just asking for it right there.
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Oh, they did challenge the jurisdiction.

The trial was intended to be held in a State court - but Spamhaus as a UK organisation challenged that.

The Feds and state depts convened and a Federal court ruled that Federal courts would have jurisdiction - even though Spamhaus was UK based, a signficant part of their business was carried out in the US [many of their paying customers are US based].

The federal court than proceeded with the case, warning Spamhaus that they believed they had jurisdiction. Spamhaus refused to show up or file a defence.
 
Originally posted by: Mark R
Oh, they did challenge the jurisdiction.

The trial was intended to be held in a State court - but Spamhaus as a UK organisation challenged that.

The Feds and state depts convened and decided that a Federal court would have jurisdiction - even though Spamhaus was UK based, a signficant part of their business was carried out in the US [many of their paying customers are US based].

The federal court than proceeded with the case, warning Spamhaus that they believed they had jurisdiction. Spamhaus refused to show up or file a defence.
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ok, so they (or someone) removed to federal court, and then didn't bother to file a special appearance or plea to the jurisdiction or whatever it is in federal court. got it.
 
Originally posted by: yllus

Yes, but is that not different from business defamation?
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i dunno about wherever, but in texas, business defamation is per se, so that damages don't have to be proven. it's even easier to win. it's a sub category, however. same with questioning a woman's chastity (those cases are really old).
 
Spamhaus is back up to it's old self again. Our filter dropped from 350 spam messages per hour this morning down to 60 within the past 2 hours or so.

😀

WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 86.141.127.109 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 218.154.179.29 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 208.69.7.42 by server bl.spamcop.net - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.58.53.140 by server dul.dnsbl.sorbs.net - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.108.81.158 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.108.81.158 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.108.81.158 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.108.81.158 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 84.108.81.158 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 208.69.7.42 by server bl.spamcop.net - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 162.84.198.36 by server sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
WARNING: R[0] Connection rejected from Unknown 208.57.71.20 by server bl.spamcop.net - RBL DNS Lookup Denied Access
 
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