http://technology.guardian.co.uk/wee...925075,00.html

Had a court in Illinois done what the winner of a case there desired, billions of spam emails could have begun landing in the inboxes of 650 million people all over the world - including the European Parliament, US Army, the White House and Microsoft - every day this month.The reason: Judge Charles Kocoras, of the district court of the northern district of Illinois, was asked to rule that a British company called Spamhaus, which runs a commercial spam-blocking service for 700 million users, should have its website taken away for failing to comply with an earlier court order - which was to stop blocking emails from e360Insight, a Chicago-based bulk emailing company.

Spamhaus has for some time maintained that e360Insight belongs on its list of "known spammers"; in June, David Linhardt - the owner and operator of e360Insight - sued, asking for monetary damages and removal from Spamhaus's list. But the suit was brought in Illinois - even though, as Steve Linford, chief executive and founder of Spamhaus points out: "Spamhaus in fact operates no business in the United States, and has no US office, agents or employees in Illinois or any other US state."

A lawyer representing Spamhaus in the US at first began defending the case, but the company then effectively thumbed its nose at Judge Kocoras, saying that an Illinois court had no jurisdiction over a British company. Because Spamhaus had initially shown up as a defendant, but then did not defend its case, the judge of course ruled in Linhardt's favour, awarding $11.7m (£6.25m) in damages for lost business, and $1.97m in legal costs. Spamhaus has not paid it.
Thus last month a new order - written by e360Insight - was submitted to the court, demanding that Icann, the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and Tucows, the Canadian domain company through which Spamhaus is registered, should remove www.spamhaus.org from the internet. The ruling did not have the force of law; but it could, should the judge choose to accept it.

That sent a shiver through people who follow the application of the law to the internet. There were murmurs of a "constitutional crisis". Could a judge in America really force a company in another country off the net? If it could, would that be because Icann is based in the US? The idea that Spamhaus might be pitched into a sort of internet limbo by a judge in one country raised important issues. Would it mean that a British judge could rule an American company off the net? And if not, why not? What would make America's courts special in that regard?

Those questions won't arise - at least not for now. Icann put out a statement (tinyurl.com/fwrmv) saying: "Icann cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name because Icann does not have either the ability or the authority to do so." Even if brought before the judge (which it has not been), Icann's chiefs don't have the power to suspend organisations from the net; its purpose, essentially, is to decide which domain names to hand out, and how.

Tucows, too, disclaimed responsibility. "Nobody's asked us to do anything," said Ken Schafer, its vice president of marketing. "Right now it's just statements flying around." But the implications of the ruling, were Judge Kocoras to implement it, are huge.

If Spamhaus vanished from the net, the volume of spam people received would increase dramatically. But Richard Cox, the company's chief information officer, says that removing www.spamhaus.org would not actually affect its ability to stop spam. The organisation works by maintaining a huge set of "blacklists" of internet addresses known to be used to send spam: client companies query the blacklist to decide whether to accept an email, based on its originating address. Being on Spamhaus's blacklist can mean your email will never reach its destination.

They key point, though, is that none of those blacklists is actually kept on www.spamhaus.org - the address that e360Insight demanded should be taken off the net. So, Cox points out, if Linhardt's complaint is that emails from him are being blocked, removing the Spamhaus website from the net would bring no relief.

Yet the case could have wider implications. Edward Felten, a law professor at Harvard, noted on his Freedom to Tinker blog that "the really sticky case would be a dispute over a valuable .com name. Suppose a US court ordered Icann to yank a prominent .com name belonging to a non-US company. Icann could fight, but being based in the US it would probably have to comply in the end. Such a decision, if seen as unfair outside the US, could trigger a sort of constitutional crisis for the net."

Spamhaus is fighting back. A Chicago-based law firm, Jenner & Block, has taken on its appeal on a pro bono basis, and last week lodged a notice to appeal: "Basically, protecting our right to appeal if we wish," says Cox. That might be important. Matthew Prince, a lawyer based in Illinois but uninvolved in the case, noted that "this judgment will likely follow Spamhaus in perpetuity. Even if it shuts down and later some of the same people reconstitute 'SpecialHamHouse' to publish similar data, the judgment will almost certainly stick to the new entity. In the long run, cute arguments and legal sleight of hand don't work."

Jonathan Ezor, assistant professor of law and technology at the Touro Law Center in Huntington, New York, comments: "Might Spamhaus eventually get acquired by a US company? Possibly - what would a default judgment do to the proposed deal in that case? What if Spamhaus's executives were travelling in the US?" The question carries echoes of the problems that executives of UK-based online gambling companies have faced during US stopovers.

But Cox is not fazed. "The last group of people to sue us in the US was a front for some spammers. They tried to withdraw from the case but that didn't stop them getting investigated by the FBI."

Asked whether he realised that the draft ruling would have no effect on Spamhaus's operation, e360's Linhardt told the Guardian he preferred not to comment on any pending rulings from the court.

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quite scary how silly you yanks can be some times mate. how the fuck can and english company that doesn't trade or do buisness in the us answer to us law?

I tyhink the key point is in the final quote from the spamhaus guy.

'The last time someone in the US tried this they were a front for spammers, and ending up in an FBI investigation'.

I would think that is also how this will end.

Spamhaus are very good, and I can personally vouch that if your domain gets put on the blacklist accidentally, one email to the CS department and about a day to investigate solves the issue.

If they are unwilling to remove that particular company from the blacklist there is only one reason.

they are spammers.

It'd be interesting to see if the judge tries to enforce this.

As it's a .org domain, afaik that means that domain comes under USA law so maybe Icann can be pushed to take the domain away from them. The same stands for .com and .net

As the article says, Spamhaus would still be running one way or another, as they still have the lists... but they'd lose what has become a valuable domain name. *goes to see if spamhaus.co.uk is available *

*bah, ofc it isnt :|

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L2P Quotes of teh Year 2007
kitchens kitchens kitchens

Pretty sure the only . that come under country laws are state (eg .ny) and country ones. Not com, org, net or anything else. Not after an arguement, if you can show me wrong will be very interested.

.com.uk, .com.de etc are country domains, .com is US domain, I think.

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there is no .com.uk its .co.uk

.com is assumed US but think its world owned, just US was first major user of the NET and took the good .com names

I vote USA stupidest country in World. Who is with me?

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meh, I know i read something about this a while back... maybe somethnig to do with internic and icann... cant find it now :P

If i find it i'll post it

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L2P Quotes of teh Year 2007
kitchens kitchens kitchens

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061020-8037.html

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Fuckin illinoisians