In a surprise move, e360 Insight CEO Dave Linhardt has dropped his lawsuit against a group of anti-spammers he filed earlier this year.
Linhardt—the e-mail marketer embroiled in a legal battle with anti-spam blacklisting organization Spamhaus—confirmed to Magilla Marketing he has dropped the suit, but declined to say why.
“I can confirm we have dropped the case against the vigilantes,” he said in an e-mail exchange with this newsletter. “We have filed a voluntary dismissal which gives us the option of filing again with an amended complaint if we choose to do so.”
He added: “We are currently evaluating all of our cases to determine the best course of action. At this time, I cannot comment on our future plans. However, I can assure you e360 will continue to fight for its rights to send e-mail messages to its customers.”
Linhardt in March sued a group of individuals who participate in the online anti-spam discussion group Nanae, claiming their postings caused some of his company’s e-mail to be blocked and, as a result, caused e360 to lose business.
The suit was aimed at proving the individuals were feeding information to Spamhaus, the anti-spam blacklisting organization against which Linhardt won an $11.7 million default judgment last year. The stated goal of the suit against Nanae participants—all of whom are U.S. residents—was to bolster e360’s argument that Spamhaus does business in the U.S. and, as a result, is not out of reach of U.S. law.
Spamhaus has refused to abide by the $11.7 million judgment, claiming U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over the U.K.-based group.
An appeals court on Aug. 30 vacated the monetary damages against Spamhaus along with an injunction and sent it back to the district court judge who issued the original decision for him to investigate Linhardt’s claims of damages more thoroughly.
Spamhaus maintains a list of IP addresses it deems are those of spammers. An unknown number of e-mail inbox providers use the list to determine whether or not to filter incoming e-mail. It is estimated that as much as 20% of a sender’s outbound e-mail can be blocked if Spamhaus blacklists its servers.
E360 sued Spamhaus last year in Illinois state court claiming the all-volunteer group erroneously blacklisted its IP addresses, causing a significant percentage of its e-mail to be blocked from recipients.
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