Appeals Court Tosses $11M Spamhaus Judgement 134
Panaqqa writes "In a not unexpected move, the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the $11 million awarded to e360 Insight and vacated a permanent injunction against Spamhaus requiring them to stop listing e360 Insight as a spammer. However, the ruling (PDF) does not set aside the default judgement, meaning that Spamhaus has still lost its opportunity to argue the case. The original judge could still impose a monetary judgement, after taking evidence from the spammer as to how much Spamhaus's block had cost them. This is unfortunate considering the legal leverage the recent ruling concerning spyware might have provided for Spamhaus."
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Because Spamhaus didn't show up in court to explain it. From Wikipedia:
Re:Oh yeah? (Score:5, Informative)
FWIR, Spamhause showed up in state court & said, 'you have no jurisdiction, the US court system has no jurisdiction & even if it did, it would have to be a Federal court'. The state judge threw it out properly judging that with no presense or assets in his district, he didn't have jurisdiction. 360 then went to a Federal Judge to redo the case & Spamhause's lawyers in the UK rightly asserted that "fuck the US court system, they have no jurisdiction, don't waste your money." or words to that effect. The problem is that the Federal Judge forgot that US law applies in the US not the world and ruled that being in another country doing things that are perfectly legal & not tortable (is that a word?) in that country is no reason that US law shouldn't be applied to them. In accordance with the new ruling on spyware, 360's case isn't actionable in the US anymore either, but that didn't seem to bother the appeals judge at all in denying the appeal of the ruling.
Sort of (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't answer at all, a default is entered. This is what happened.
Re:Would this be evil/wrong? (Score:2, Informative)
This is unfortunately already happening:
Vancouver Sun: Online drugs can prove deadly: coroner [canada.com]
Not a joke: real people are dying from these scumbags.
There are also several mentions of death via overdose or fake prescriptions containing harmful particles in the recent court documents released on the Chris "Rizler" Smith conviction as well:
http://spamsuite.com/node/195 [spamsuite.com]
They definitely are killing people, it's just not publicized very often, if at all.
The downside you speak of is lack of any interest on the part of the media in exposing these (mostly Russian) criminals for the scum that they are. They'll raise the issue of allofmp3.com violating copyright as a barrier to Russia entering the WTO, but not this. I don't understand why.
SiL
Re:Satisfied customer (Score:3, Informative)
Spamhaus are not in any trouble because of what name they used, or even what they listed. They're in "trouble" on a technicality, they messed up their claim that this court has no jurisdiction over them (which it doesn't; they are not a US company and have no holdings or business in the US, so a US court can't do a damn thing to them). No trial has been held on the facts of the case. It's not real trouble because the court really can't do anything: regardless of what judgement is made against them, they don't have to pay or comply in any way, and that'll be the end of it. You can't extradite a company, the court can't enforce judgement against assets that are located on foreign soil, and in the UK (where Spamhaus really are) is it not illegal to ignore the proclamations of a foreign court.
Re:Satisfied customer (Score:4, Informative)
As a donation-funded non-profit organisation based in the UK and Switzerland, they don't do business in the US at present, never have, and are not particularly likely to do so in the future. They don't even have a tax-exempt status in the US. A US court cannot prohibit US citizens from donating to them, nor can they confiscate those donations. There really isn't anything that a US court can do to them.