On Tue, 2006-10-10 at 23:25 -0700, John Rudd wrote: > Jason Haar wrote: > > I've been waiting for anyone else to bring it up - but no-one has. > > > > If Spamhaus lose this lawsuit (which they are ignoring as they are > > UK-based and this is some judge in Chicago), they may very well lose > > their ".ORG" domain - which would have a rather large impact on our > > Antispam scores for a start... > > > > http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20061009/anti-spam-lawsuit.htm > > > > "Americans to arms" I say... Start sending "Internet for Dummies" to the > > judge for starters ;-) > > I'm not really sure it's such a big deal. > > Spamhaus will have to resort to their UK domain. One where the laws > entirely protect them from this kind of harassment. We'll all switch to > using that domain instead of the .org domain, when using/referencing > their RBLs. Oh the horror. > > Meanwhile, the twit who sued them has wasted a bunch of court fees, and > made only the slightest dent in their operations. > > And the UK gets to look good. And the US government gets to look stupid > in front of the world court of opinion (like that's anything new, given > our current administration). > > Where's the problem?
The precedent is the problem. As soon as one chickenboner wins the SLAPP lottery, they'll all line up to SLAPP any organization, corporation, or individual that annoys them. Convicted felons like Ralsky will be laughing themselves to sleep, thinking how easy it is to use a legal steamroller to quash their opposition. Spamfighting is almost entirely a volunteer operation, and those who join the Lumber Cartel (TINLC) do so with the expectation that they'll receive a lot of "Cartooney" threats from lawyers and pretend-lawyers. If this company succeeds in cutting off spamhaus's domain, the Cartooney letters will start to be real. At that point, the options open to the army of private citizens who've been fighting spam quickly narrow down to either quiting or joining/imitating SPEWS. Cartel members (TINC) will start looking over their shoulder and waiting for the process-server - and when that happens, the terrorists have won. FWIW. YMMV. Bill
