WWW- Spam-fighting group Spamhaus has been ordered by a U.S. District court to pay damages to a marketing company it allegedly illegally blacklisted. However, in a statement on its Web site, the organization thumbed its nose at the judgment, and refused to abide by the ruling.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered Spamhaus to pay e360insight and its CEO David Linhardt $11,715,000 in damages, and immediately remove his company from the blacklist. In addition, the group was ordered to publish an apology and acknowledge that Linhardt was not a spammer.
Spamhaus provides their blacklist database at no charge to e-mail administrators as a way to filter out spam. Its database is one of the most popular, and is used by companies in the United States and all over the world.
In a statement on the its Web site, e360insight blasted the spam-fighting organization for its practices, calling it a “fanatical, vigilante organization” that has ignored U.S. law, and said the court had found that its marketing practices were indeed legal.
“e360insight has proven that Spamhaus routinely exposes their customers and volunteers to extreme legal risk by continuing to engage in illegal blacklisting, defamation, extortion and blackmail in the name of fighting spam,” the company said in a statement. It also invited other companies who have been targeted by Spamhaus to use the information and documents it provided on its Web site in their own cases.
Spamhaus in its own statement said it would not abide by the ruling, and said it could not be enforced in the United Kingdom under British law. The organization said if Linhardt wanted to enforce the order, he must re-file it in the country and prove jurisdiction.
“Although meaningless for Spamhaus, which as a British organization not subject to Illinois court orders is listing Linhardt’s company E360 Insight on its SBL spam blocklist as usual, the Illinois ruling shows that U.S. courts can be bamboozled by spammers with ease,” it said.
The group also said that the ruling is contrary to U.K. law which makes spamming illegal in the country in the first place.
It was not immediately clear if e360insight would re-file its case.