Harris Interactive drops its suit against MAPS, leaving a trail of unanswered questions Harris Interactive ended its lawsuit against Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC and numerous Internet service providers last month, but the outcome is unlikely to satisfy anyone.
Redwood City, CA-based MAPS didn’t end up with the decision it had hoped for – one that would let it continue to identify alleged spammers on its Realtime Blackhole List (RBL).
At the same time, Harris, of Rochester, NY, was unable to cripple MAPS, as some DM observers hoped it would do.
But Harris did win one point before dropping the case: Some of the 12 Internet service providers (ISPs) named as defendants agreed that the research firm was no spammer and restored service, despite its listing on the RBL. Harris was able to restore communications to 98% of its online panelists.
Harris filed the lawsuit in July at n the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, seeking injunctive relief and monetary damages, after it was listed on the RBL. The RBL is monitored by numerous ISPs that can, elect to block e-mail communications from those listed The ensuing shutdown can put a company out of business.
Another question raised by the suit – but not yet litigated – is whether a firm should be listed on the RBL based on the nomination of a competitor. Harris also named Martin Roth, a principal at Incon Research Inc., a Norwalk, CT-based market research firm, as a defendant in the case, saying that he had nominated Harris for the RBL. Roth is a competitor, Harris alleged.
Roth had no comment on the case, but MAPS officials acknowledge that Roth nominated Harris for the RBL after allegedly being spammed by Harris, and that he is a member of MAPS’ SWAT team, a group of volunteers that handle spam targeted at staff and board members. Incon also promotes its subscription to the RBL on the home page of its Web site. But Kelly Thompson, project manager for the RBL, argued that Roth is not a competitor to Harris.
“They are in the same field,” she said. “I don’t know if I would characterize them as direct competitors.”
Another issue is the type of investigations MAPS conducts when nominations are made. Are they thorough, or arbitrary?
Officials from MAPS have said that comprehensive investigations are executed and alleged spammers are given numerous opportunities to comply with MAPS’ code of confirmed opt-in for all e-mail transmissions.
In the Harris case, a systems administrator from Russia, Gene Sokolov, was the first to say he had been spammed by Harris. Thompson said MAPS took Sokolov at his word that he had received the unsolicited e-mail, and based on that complaint, Harris was briefly listed on the RBL last December.
Then two others said they were spammed – Roth, and Nick Nicholas, a former staff director of policy and communications for MAPS. (Nicholas, an employee at the time of the listing, was also named in the lawsuit). Roth was assigned by MAPS to investigate alleged the spamming by Harris, which ultimately resulted in the July listing, Thompson said.
Ben Black, vice president of Internet business development at Harris, questioned whether the parties were spammed. He said the company has a record of where every person came from, and where and when they signed up.
As a result of the RBL listing, the combined ISPs named as defendants in the lawsuit blocked e-mail transmissions to some 2.7 million of Harris’s 6.6 million online panelists.
Prior to Harris’s decision to drop its lawsuit, several of the ISPs had reversed their decisions to block the firm’s e-mail, including Microsoft’s Hotmail and America Online Inc. (which does not subscribe to the RBL).
“We researched it and we believe that our anti-spamming effort was not compromised by this agreement to allow Harris e-mail to reach our Hotmail users,” said Jim Cullinan, a spokesman for Microsoft.
One thing’s for sure, though: MAPS is sticking to its guns. Thompson said that the group was “pleased” that Harris dropped the lawsuit, but that it would remain listed on the RBL until it complied with MAPS’ rules.
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