Spamhaus recently suffered an $11.7 million judgment in an Illinois federal court after e360insight sued it for placing the company on its spammer blacklist. The London-based spam-fighter refused to defend itself, leading to a default judgment.
Bart Loethen, a lawyer for e360insight, insisted that his client does not engage in spamming and said he had no choice but to go after Spamhaus’ domain given the company’s refusal to take his client’s name of its spammer blacklist.
Loethen asked U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras to strip Spamhaus of its domain.
Kocoras has yet to sign the order, but officials at Spamhaus said the judge would likely do so soon.
Officials at ICANN said they would refuse to comply with an order mandating the suspension of the domain.
"The Illinois court wouldn't have jurisdiction over ICANN, and in any case it's not in our remit to suspend domain names," an ICANN spokesman said. "This is not an ICANN matter. We wouldn't take down the website if asked to, because it's not in our power to do so.”
According to Spamhaus Chief Information Officer Richard Cox, Kocoras has no options within his jurisdiction to enforce the proposed order.
"One person with the power to take down our website is the Domain Name System (DNS) manager for Spamhaus.org — but he is in Europe, and he has no plans to do so,” Cox said. “The court might order the registrar to change the domain — but the registrar is in Canada, out of the Illinois court's jurisdiction.”
Cox said the court could also issue its order to the Virginia-based Public Interest Registry, which holds the DNS. But he believes that organization’s response would mirror ICANN’s position.