Spamhaus to Appeal Default Judgment - Domain Name Safe

Naperville (IL) attorney David Fish writes in his Litigation Blog about the developments in the Spamhaus litigation going on in the Northern District in Illinois.  As last we left the news, U.K. based Spamhaus answered the complaint of E360 Insight, who claimed that Spamhaus unfairly labeled them as spammers and caused their email to consumers to be blocked.  Then Spamhaus abandoned the litigation against it assuming that the U.S. Court had no jurisdiction and no way to enforce its monetary judgment against them. 

Judge Charles Kocoras, however, considered a draft order that would require ICANN to revoke the domain name of Spamhaus, and boy, did that get their attention.  Insert appropriate Stephen Colbert spit take.  ICANN has said in statements that the court should direct the order to the Canadian registrar, Tucows, who oversees the .org domain rather than looking to the California based corporation that oversees the technical aspects of the Internet. 

The final order, however, rejected pulling the domain name as that would affect the legal activities performed by Spamhaus.  So, that leaves the $11.7 million default judgment which Spamhaus will appeal. 

Fish reports in his Litigation Blog that the powerhouse (or should that be powerhaus) law firm of Jenner and Block has signed on to represent Spamhaus on a pro bono basis.  J & B, he notes, sees the case as a First Amendment issue in light of how people can define spam and issue that opinion globally.  The "opinion" designation is important as a qualifier as it qualifies the circumstances for defamation to be legally proved in court.  But as Fish rightly points out, this is a default judgment and the facts in the case are not based on a real trial record.  Walking away from the case has made Spamhaus' position on appeal tenuous.

Other stories Mr. Fish writes about include suits against eBay based on the sale of items that infringe on third party intellectual property, and a suit against Motorola over hearing damage allegedly caused by the design of Bluetooth headsets.