Anti-spam organization, Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), plans to vigorously defend its right to publish its Realtime Blackhole List (RBL) in the lawsuit filed against it in July by Harris Interactive.
The announcement came after two prominent Internet service providers, also named in the suit, reversed their decisions to block e-mail transmissions to millions of Harris Interactive’s online panelists based on MAPS’ opinion that Harris Interactive was a spammer. MAPS’ RBL of alleged spammers is subscribed to by numerous ISPs that monitor the list and then decide whether or not to block mail from those listed.
“MAPS plans to continue to publish its opinions[the RBL] as to the spamming activities of various Internet sites,” Kelly Thompson, RBL project manager for MAPS said in a statement. “Basically Harris was and is not being a good Internet citizen. They insist on using dirty e-mail lists, which contain the e-mail addresses of people who do not want to receive their e-mail, and who did not themselves sign up to receive e-mail from Harris”.
Last week, Microsoft’s Hotmail, one of a number of prominent ISPs named in the lawsuit, reached a settlement with Rochester, NY-based online polling company, Harris Interactive and restored its service. And last month America Online Inc., also named in the suit, agreed to restore Harris Interactive’s communications capabilities.
“Microsoft took a look at what we were sending and said ‘this looks okay to us, we’re going to send the mail back through,'” Dan Hucko, a spokesman for Harris Interactive said yesterday.
The ISPs had blocked e-mail transmissions to some 2.7 million of Harris Interactive’s 6.6 million online panelists. Other defendants named in the case include Quest Communications International Inc., Bellsouth.net Inc., Juno Online Services Inc. and Zoomnet Inc.”
MAPS does not dictate policy to anybody,” Thompson said. “We simply publish a list of Internet addresses known to originate or enable spam and what the individual Internet service providers choose do with that information is up to them. They can choose to block e-mail from those addresses, or, as AOL and Hotmail have done, they can choose to accept it. This is how our system was designed to work, and it confirms our position in this lawsuit.”
In July, Harris Interactive filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District court for the Eastern District of New York, seeking injunctive relief and significant monetary damages. Also named in the suit is Harris Interactive’s competitor, market research firm, Incon, and its president, Martin Roth, accusing them of “nominating” Harris Interactive for the RBL.
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