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Spamhaus fined $11.7 million
Spamhaus is a popular anti-spam blacklist maintained by a non-profit group.
Anti-spam blacklists work by providing a list of known possible spam sources to email server administrators via the DNS protocol. Each message's headers can be checked for sending workstations or servers that are members of networks commonly used by spammers.
The SpamButcher spam filtering software doesn't use these kinds of blacklists by default due to some historical reliability issues. One downside to relying on a third-party for filtering data is that it's hard to tell when the blacklist has fallen into a state of poor-repair. There has been at least one case of a blacklist owner, "giving up" and setting their list to show all networks as possible spammers on the way out. However, many server administrators use them with good success and are an important weapon in the anti-spam arsenal.
Recently Spamhaus started listing a company known as e360insight on its list. Note that being on the list doesn't mean that Spamhaus is blocking their email. It just means that the users of server administrators who actively choose to use Spamhaus will not get their email. Spamhaus doesn't directly offer any services to stop junk e-mail.
Unfortunately, a rather stupid judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois didn't see it that way. They ordered that Spamhaus cough up over $11 million to the spammers (I'm sorry, opt-in marketers) and a public apologize for their misdeed.
Spamhaus didn't defend themselves in court, so the judgment was issued by default. This would seem to be a flaw in the legal system.
The good news is that Spamhaus is based in the UK. I'm not a legal expert, but I've read that enforcing this kind of judgment oversees is between difficult and impossible.