On September 15, a U.S. Federal Judge ordered Spamhaus.org to pay $11.7 million in compensatory damages and issued a permanent injunction against Spamhaus’ email blocking technology. The permanent injunction explicitly prohibits Spamhaus from interrupting e360’s email messages in any way without providing supporting evidence. The order also requires Spamhaus to post a message on its website indicating e360 was incorrectly listed on the Spamhaus blacklist. To date, Spamhaus has refused to comply with the Federal Court order.

E360 calculated Spamhaus’ revenue obtained from blocking e360’s messages by applying Spamhaus’ price list on its website to the messages it received from recipient email servers in the U.S. When two mail servers connect to each other to execute an email transmission, there is a conversation that occurs between the sending and receiving server. When a recipient server is using Spamhaus to block the transmission, the server often tells the sender it is using Spamhaus to block the email message. E360 captured the responses from hundreds of thousands of mail servers in the U.S. and analyzed the information. From September 15th through the 19th, E360 received confirmed Spamhaus block messages from 86,622 unique domains in the U.S. By combining the rates Spamhaus charges for its service and the record counts of e360’s opt-in lists, the total fees paid to Spamhaus equals $1.8 million per year.

Contrary to the findings in e360’s analysis, Spamhaus claims it does not do business in the U.S.

“Our internal analysis backs up our statement that Spamhaus is doing business in the U.S., is collecting money from U.S. companies and is being used by a huge number of Internet system administrators in the U.S.,” says Linhardt. “$1.8 million is a lot of money for a non-profit organization that denies it does business in the United States.”

E360's position is that Spamhaus.org is a fanatical, vigilante organization operating in the United States with blatant disregard for U.S. law. In addition, E360 has proven Spamhaus routinely exposes their customers and volunteers to extreme legal risk by continuing to engage in improper blacklisting, defamation, extortion and blackmail in the name of fighting spam.

In response to the court’s judgment, Spamhaus posted several responses on its website and on Google message boards. “The Illinois ruling, although meaningless for Spamhaus, which as a British organization not subject to Illinois court orders is continuing to list Linhardt's IP addresses on its SBL spam blocklist as usual, the Illinois ruling shows that U.S. courts can be bamboozled by spammers with great ease,” says Steve Linford, Chief Executive of Spamhaus.

Mr. Linford hired Hinshaw & Culbertson, LLC to represent Spamhaus when the claim was filed by e360. Mr. Linford’s attorney’s then moved the case from state to federal court. On the day Spamhaus was required to provide discovery materials in the case, Mr. Linford fired his attorneys and withdrew from the proceedings.

“I can only assume, since it decided not to participate in the case any further, that Spamhaus could not produce its justification for the listing of e360 on its blacklists, and rather than producing evidence that would show its true colors and improper behavior, decided to allow e360 to have a judgment and commence its public relations assault,” said Bart Loethen, lead attorney representing e360.

“Our next step is to seek enforcement of the court’s judgment in the U.S. and in the U.K. if necessary,” says Linhardt. “I suspect Spamhaus is going to find it to be very difficult to continue doing business in the U.S. in the near future.”

E360Insight, LLC (E360) is a permission marketing company focused on cost effective customer acquisition solutions. E360 provides consumers with notification, choice and control as it relates to the receipt of marketing messages. Consumers opt-in to E360’s programs and must meet E360’s confirmation standards in order to receive marketing messages. Once entered, consumers can opt-out to cancel their subscription at any time for any reason. E360’s lines of business include performance email, multi-channel list rental, data licensing and lead generation. By using E360’s marketing solutions, companies can dramatically increase revenue and lower customer acquisition costs.