Anti-spam champion slapped with $11.7m damages

The manager of a popular blacklist used to block spam was hit with a multimillion-dollar judgment on Wednesday but the order may not be enforceable.

The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has ordered Spamhaus to pay $11,715,000 in damages to e360insight and its chief, David Linhardt, who had sued the anti-spam organisation earlier this year over illegal blacklisting.

The court also barred Spamhaus from causing any email sent by e360insight or Linhardt to be "blocked, delayed, altered, or interrupted in anyway" and ordered Spamhaus to publish an apology stating Linhardt and his company are not spammers, according to a copy of the order.

Linhardt wrote in an email to silicon.com sister site CNET News.com on Thursday: "This ruling confirms e360insight's position that Spamhaus.org is a fanatical, vigilante organisation that operates in the United States with blatant disregard for US law."

But Spamhaus is unfazed by the ruling. In a statement on its website, it dismissed the judgment as invalid and charges that the court was "bamboozled by spammers". Spamhaus didn't mount a defence in the case; the ruling was a default judgment in absence of counterarguments.

Spamhaus said on its website: "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 organisation 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."

Linhardt and his company are indeed spammers and remain on the Spamhaus blocklist, the organisation said. Posting a note that e360insignt was inaccurately labelled as a spammer would be a lie, Spamhaus said. If Linhardt wants a ruling that counts, he needs to refile his case in the UK, according to Spamhaus.

The Spamhaus blocklist is a database of verified spam sources that is supplied at no cost to help email administrators clean incoming email streams. Spam accounts for about 75 per cent of all email, and the Spamhaus list is one of the most popular such blacklists to help cleanse email.

Dean Drako, the CEO of Barracuda Networks, a maker of anti-spam appliances, said: "The Spamhaus guys are good guys and they are doing the right thing. It is a pity that the court system in the US can be abused in such a fashion as it is." Barracuda offers the Spamhaus list in its appliances.

Spammers often threaten with lawsuits but don't often follow through, Drako said. Senders of junk mail fight blacklists because those hurt their business. "If a spammer gets listed, less spam gets through and their revenue is related to the amount of spam that gets read," Drako said.

Like Spamhaus, Drako does not expect the Illinois judgment to have any effect in the fight against spam. "I don't think the lawsuit actually means anything," he said.

Joris Evers writes for CNET News.com