SARE, the SpamAssassin Rules Emporium where Spamassassin users can download useful anti-spam rule sets, has been down since yesterday (2007-06-07). (View rulesemporium.com via GoogleCache).

In the Spamassassin Users mailing list, one user suggested that it was related to the fact that surbl.org was also down, as was www.uribl.com, the latter of which, at the time of writing, is now showing an Apache default page saying "It works!".

According to a diary entry by Bojan Zdrnja at The SANS Institute, spammers have been carrying out a DDOS against these sites and also against Spamhaus (which appears to be weathering the storm better than the others).

"Yet Another Ninja" requested in a reply that users disable the downloading of Spamassassin rules from rulesemporium.com until further notice (RDJ = Rules Du Jour - described here).

Update 2007-06-09: URIBL is back online...

• the Yellowikis site is shut down
• control and ownership of the domain name is passed to Yell
• compensation is paid to Yell for loss of profits
• the founders agree never to set up another competitor to Yell

Is this another attempt by a company to claim trademark of a generic word or part of one (Yellow/Yell) and prevent it's use (like Microsoft and Windows), or is Yell just using any excuse to drive out a competitor?