Spamhaus to Ignore $11.7M Judgement

6031769 writes, "As reported on CNet, Spamhaus is choosing to ignore a judgement of $11.7M against them in an uncontested trial in an Illinois court. According to Spamhaus, the judgement has no impact on them, since they are a British organization." From the Spamhaus reply to the judgment: "Default judgments obtained in US county, state or federal courts have no validity in the UK and can not be enforced under the British legal system... As spamming is illegal in the UK, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to UK law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place."

Good for Spamhaus

[ronanbear]

The right to block Spam is important. I hope their executives don't try going over to America any time soon though. If I worked for them I'd be pretty nervous about taking transatlantic flights.

The bigger question

[portwojc]

If a company is sending spam why isn't the ISP for that company shutting them down? Isn't it against the AUP of most providers or at least the big carriers?

Spamhaus does alot of ignoring

[dfn5]

For example when you tell them that they blacklisted your IP address and you can vouche that you don't spam, but they won't do anything because you belong to a /16 where somewhere sombody is spamming. blacklisting might be a good idea, but organizations like spamhaus make it bad in practice.

Hmmmm

[BCW2]

Sounds like a very appropriate response. Illinois is trying to enforce an ill-conceived law and Spamhouse is within their rights in under the laws of the country they opperate from. I do want to see the judges reaction to this one, it should be worth a laugh.

Re:wow

[mustafap]

>It's their attitude that I find amusing - they really couldn't give a shit.

It's your attitude that I find amusing - They are preventing an illegal acting being commited in our country. Why should they give a shit?

Re:Spamhaus does alot of ignoring

[cortana]

Surely all Spamhaus do is maintain a blacklist of network addresses of known spammers? They don't block the spam themselves. How could they? It seems like the US court order is... insane.

Spamhaus are not liable if the information they published is used by a third party to decide not to accept your mail. Instead, blame the third party for making such a sweeping and unrealistic decision with only a minimum of supporting data.

Default Judgements

[Anonymous Coward]

Before we all go off half cocked about Illinois coursts and how stupid the decision was... It was a default Judgment which means Spamhaus failed to show up in court and the Judge found in the plaintiffs failure.. Shame on them from not coming to fight it, and shame on us for putting judges in place that can not see through some technical jargon to realize when something is total crap and dismiss it on lack of merits.

Re:Spamhaus does alot of ignoring

[Anonymous Coward]

They only block larger parts when the ISP involved does not cleanup the problems or moves the spammer around inside their IP space. As far as 'escalation' listings go, Spamhaus is sure one of the more moderate parties, who only escalate after contacting the ISP fails.

Jurisdiction?

[interiot]

How did the Illinois judge decide they had jurisdiction over a UK-only company in the first place? I thought courts throw out cases that they have no jurisdiction over.

Re:Good for Spamhaus

[clickclickdrone]

>They can't be arrested, can they
The poster is probably referring to two british company directors (different firms) who have been arrested as soon as they stepped off the plane because they run Internet gambling firms, quiet legal in the UK but illegal in the US.

Kill Spammers and Politicians

[drewzhrodague]

Agreed. I would support a bill to legalize assassination. Wouldn't our spammers and government officials think twice if their actions were going to get them killed/tortured/beaten/imprisoned?

Re:Cost to defend themselves not worth it

[clickclickdrone]

But that's what the US does, assumes whatever works there works throughout the world whether it's laws or just general ways of life. people and companies throughout the world are constantly fending off legal actions in regard to things that are quite legal on their home turf but illegal in the US.

Re:Spamhaus does alot of ignoring

[OverlordQ]

For example when you tell them that they blacklisted your IP address and you can vouche that you don't spam, but they won't do anything because you belong to a /16 where somewhere sombody is spamming. blacklisting might be a good idea, but organizations like spamhaus make it bad in practice.

Complain to people who use the list, not the people making the list.

Re:wow

[ledow]

Not a chance. Failing to reply to an incorrectly served, non-jurisdictional court order for a country that you don't operate in, by a Judge with no savvy at all and on a law that not only doesn't exist in the UK but which operates under the OPPOSITE principle (i.e. if you spam, that's illegal in itself)? They wouldn't even give it a second thought.

They'd probably use it AGAINST the people who were trying to sue Spamhaus - poor lawyering, scaremongering, trying to impose laws across international jurisdictions, playing judges off against one another etc.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Swiss banks and lots of others offer banking to US people and they do ignore US Banking laws.

Re:Color me confused.

[91degrees]

What if they say "We recommend you don't buy a (product) because it's made from squashed babies". When the product isn't?

Re:Color me confused.

[Anonymous Coward]

You, like everyone else in this story, have no idea what you're talking about.

Before you call the judge "clue-imparied" again maybe you should "get a clue" about what a default judgement means and what Spamhuas had to do (or rather not do) to wind up having one entered against them.

Somebody here is clueless, and I'm pretty sure it's not the judge.

Re:DEFAULT judgement

[ledow]

Yeah, but the question of whether it would be legally binding or not also depends on a lot of other things, such as the jurisdiction and whether it's a reasonable venue... an Illinois court is no more a reasonable venue for a UK-only company than the planet Jupiter. You could not be reasonably expected to absorb the costs of defending yourself in a foreign country like that, without even mentioning travel costs, legal costs, unfamiliarity with the law etc. the fact that what you did is not illegal in your country etc.

Judgement or not, it's null and void on more than one account - improperly served, incorrect jurisdiction, unreasonable venue, etc. the list goes on. The error, unfortunately, lies with the judge here for failing to account for jurisdiction.

Re:I'll keep this in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

>> serving legal papers by EMAIL? WTF?

Indeed, serving legal papers by email to a group you're suing for dropping your emails.

Re:Good for Spamhaus

[sharkey]

Or Dmitry Sklyarov.

Re:Color me confused.

[michajoe]

Damn, with a name like e360insight, is is f*cking OBVIOUS that they are spammers. Or purveyors of fine spyware. Or both.

Re:wow

[IPFreely]

So a spammer in the US is sending spam into the UK. It's illegal to spam there, so the US spammer is breaking UK law. Can the UK convict this spammer and bring them to justice? If the spammer ignored the conviction, would that be any different than Spamhaus?

Maybe spammers should also follow local laws in the foreign countries in which they spam^H^H^H^H^H operate.

Spamhaus provide all details to law enforcement

[stiggle]

Spamhaus provide a special version of their ROKSO database to law enforcement (if requested) which not only contains all their details, but logs and other information to backup the claims that they are spammers.

The court case was probably done in the States because they knew Spamhaus would not contest it and then they can turn round and say "we're not spammers and have won court cases to prove it".

Re:Good for Spamhaus

[ronanbear]

Or to look at it another way.

American spammer files a nuisance lawsuit British company in Illinois for blocking spam

British company is forced to spend a fortune hiring relevant lawyers and defending itself against a lawsuit without any merit. Spamhaus also have to spend another fortune ensuring that it complies with other regions laws

Spamhaus decide that it is easier to remove spammer from list. Other spammers follow suit and Spamhaus suddenly isn't blocking all that much spam.

Alternatively Spamhaus say that since they are operating in England they should be sued under British law. They ignore the judgement and the FUD attacks and keep doing everything their own way.

The spanner in the works is that an Illinois judge on a power trip takes a disliking to a British company refusing to show up even though the case is bogus and the court shouldn't have taken the case in the first place due to juristiction issues. Wild judgement is issued with massive punative damages which does little to harm Spamhaus. It's so large they'll never be able to comply. Instead, it just forces another company to stay outside the US due to an out of touch legal system. Oh and it adds about $11m to the price any American company that buys Spamhaus has to pay.

Re:wow

[LiquidCoooled]

No because the spammer does not own property in the UK, spamhous do.
they run a mirror of their servers from within the US, therefore they should either remove their servers from the country or abide by the laws and regulations placed in that country.

Re:Jurisdiction?

[rahrens]

See my post above about this same thing.

Basically, this Federal law allows US citizens to sue foreigners that have harmed them in some way in order to gain compensation from the defendant's US assets. It allows the plaintiff to then hold that judgement for award if or until the losing party does gain sufficient US assets to pay the judgement. Since it a US court, it can order US assets of a foreign entity anywhere in the US to be seized for payment. This was the result of a law passed many years ago. It is NOT intended to give US courts jurisdiction over foreign soil. It is to allow US citizens to gain compensation for damage or harm done to them by persons outside of normal US jurisdiction.

Remember the hostages from the US Iranian embassy? They sued under this law, then ended up fighting the Justice Department over getting the Iranian assets turned over to them to cover the judgement.

Re:Default Judgements

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Shame on them from not coming to fight it,

So if you get an e-mail message telling you you're being sued in Nigeria, because some of the comments you made on you blog as aprt of your work with a non-profit can be construed as Libel and you're being sued for millions you don't have, you're going to go buy a plane ticket and head to Nigeria?

...and shame on us for putting judges in place that can not see through some technical jargon to realize when something is total crap and dismiss it on lack of merits.

Us? I didn't appoint that judge, so stop blaming me. I really wish you had not appointed him, since that court is listed as one of the most unjust in the country according to the "judicial hellhole" report that monitors notably abusive courts where less than ethical lawyers tend to venue shop for cases with little merit. Stop it.

Re:Spamhaus does alot of ignoring

[fuzznutz]

They add IPs to the list knowing full well that those IPS will be blocked, intending that those IPs will be blocked, with the result that those IPs are blocked. For practical purposes, what is the difference between this and actually blocking them?

How about the fact that they don't actually block them?

I have never understood the controversy around SBLs unless you are a spammer. If I subsribe to a SBL it means I don't want your email when you are on the blocked list. If the SBL blocks email that I want, I simply don't use them. I can be arbitrary and capricious about my email. I can block you if I don't like your tie or bacause you lastname starts with a "W" or because you voted Libertarian. Spamhaus does not block anybody, I do. Spamhaus just provides me with a convenient list of addresses that they believe harbors spammer.

What makes you or anyone else think that you have some inalienable right to send me email that I don't want? If it affects your business, I say tough shit. You can't come into my house and force me to watch your commercials either. If I rip out all the ads in my latest issue of Islands Magazine, you can't do Jack about it either. SBLs are a Godsend when it comes to spam reduction.

If I Were You

[Nom du Keyboard]

If I were Spamhaus, I'd definitely put any USA travel plans on hold into the indefinite future. Even transiting in airports is dangerous these days.

Re:wow

[DragonWriter]

I think another important question here is culpability. Under US (and Illinois) law would a *US-based* operation similar to Spamhaus actually have a legal problem here?

A US-based service would have probably spent the money to fight the suit, and quite likely, I expect, would have prevailed on the merits. Spamhaus chose not to because, I would guess, they judged that their assets exposed to a US judgement didn't warrant the cost of actually defending the suit, not because they thought they would lose.

Re:wow

[Morphine007]

IANAL, but I believe the Full Faith and Credit clause of the US Constitution allows rulings and judgements to be imposed in other states.

IANAG (I Am Not A Geographer), but I believe the United Kingdom is not actually beholden to the US Constitution since (and this my come as a shock to some /. readers) the UK isn't actually a state within the US... I know... I know... shocking... isn't it?

meh... who needs good karma anyway :)

This word is important: default

[Orgasmatron]

It means that the other side didn't even show up. It also means that the court didn't bother looking into the merits of the case. One of the claims could have been that the operators of Spamhaus were little green men from Pluto and no one would even notice.

No precedent has been set. None.

The court didn't decide that the claimant was right, or that spamhaus was doing anything wrong. The one and only thing that the court gave an opinion on was whether or not the defendant appeared.

Re:wow

[cayenne8]

"Paying court-ordered judgments that are obtained against you is one of the legal requirements for people who do business in the jurisdictions where the judgments were obtained."

But, this is against a non-profit organization, that just compiles a database and allows access for free.

Hardly what I'd call a 'business' in the classical sense. They aren't selling anything, not making money...and not forcing anyone to use their list. I don't see how you can sue someone for making a list of something available...

Andrew Jackson said it best.

[techno-vampire]

To quote (approximately) President Andrew Jackson, "The court has rendered its judgement. Now, let's see them enforce it."

Re:wow

[BrianH]

Yes, the spammer MIGHT be able to recover part of their 11+ million dollar judgment this way. I'll bet those servers might be worth a whole $5000 on eBay!

Spamhaus, in turn, will merely need to set up a new mirror in Canada to serve the US. If they're smart, they should already be contemplating such a move. A Canadian mirror would still serve their US customers just as quickly, but would put the servers out of the courts reach.